Full Text

Jakob Schiller
Dianne Carroll is overcome with joy after her son Demetris Brown received his diploma during the Berkeley High School graduation ceremonies held Friday evening at the Greek Theater. For more BHS graduation photos, see Page Eleven.K

News

Playing host to UC Berkeley costs the city $10.9 million a year—nearly the same amount as the city’s current budget deficit—according to a recently released city-commissioned fiscal impact analysis.

Berkeley intends to use the $50,000 report from Economic & Planning Systems, Inc. to strengthen its hand as the city prepares to enter negotiations with the university for mitigations to pay for city fire, police and sewer services.

A 1990 deal, set to expire next year, requires the university to pay approximately $500,000 a year, mostly for use of the city’s sewer system.

The fiscal impact report, released Friday, puts the city’s cost of providing the university sewer services at $2.7 million, fire services at 5.7 million and police services at $3 million. In total, the report estimates UC costs the city $13.5 million in unpaid services, while supplying only $2.1 million back in tax revenue and $500,000 in mitigation payments.

Should UC achieve its 2020 development goals outlined in its Long Range Development Plan, the city would be saddled with an additional $1.6 million in costs, according to the study.

In a separate analysis, the report found that the city loses out on $10.8 million in tax revenue annually because the university—the city’s largest landholder—is exempt from local taxes and fees that pay for city services.

Councilmember Kriss Worthington called the report a good beginning, but said it failed to account for all of the city’s expenses. Worthington and Councilmember Dona Spring both said they intend to seek more than $11 million per year from the university.

UC Berkeley, however, contested the report’s findings and refused to use them as a baseline in future negotiations. The fiscal impact report is “one-sided, and I don’t think it’s accurate,” said Irene Hegarty, the university’s Director of Community Relations.

Hegarty said the report undervalued UC’s contribution to the city economy and overstated its costs.

Citing a 2001 UC Berkeley study, Hegarty said the university employed one out of every six Berkeley residents for a total of $228 million in payroll, and spent roughly $70 million with Berkeley-based businesses. UC estimated that its direct payments generate another 6,600 jobs and $170 million for the city’s economy.

Additionally, Hegarty said, the university provides Berkeley with free technical and policy advice, numerous volunteers, free recreation space, contributions for streetlight and traffic light improvements, and a stable employer that has safeguarded the city economy from harsh economic downturns.

UC officials also questioned the methodology used in the city’s fiscal impact report. In calculating the cost of fire services, for instance, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Physical and Environmental Planning Thomas Lollini said the report failed to track the source of calls for service. Instead, he said, the report placed a “blanket” cost on UC, based on its proportion of the city population, without taking into account that students were far less likely to request emergency medical assistance which, he said, account for 70 percent of calls to the fire department.

Long-simmering town-gown differences have flared recently as Berkeley’s budget deficit spiraled to $10.3 million this year, with some city residents and politicians blaming the university for not paying its fair share. Assistant City Manager Arrietta Chakos said the UC fiscal impact report, approved two years ago, was not politically motivated. Chakos added that the city was merely trying to recoup its losses, not seek political cover.

As for the indirect benefits UC provides, Chakos said they were too difficult to quantify so they were excluded from the report.

The university will be in the driver’s seat for any negotiations. Although the city believes it can compel UC to pay for more of the cost of transporting its sewage to treatment centers, as a state entity UC Berkeley is exempt from local assessments that would pay for other services.

A bill authored by Assemblymember Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) that passed the Assembly last month wouldn’t force UC to offer mitigations, but would prohibit UC from certifying environmental reports for new projects—including its in-progress Long-range Development Plan—until a deal with the city was reached.

Ultimately the city hopes that the California Legislature will follow the example of other states and offer payments in lieu of taxes to cities that house large public agencies. For example, Mansfield, Connecticut, home to the University of Connecticut, will receive $6 million from that state this year to offset 45 percent of what the city would receive if the university paid taxes.

For UC, any settlement would need approval from the University of California Board of Regents. Other UC towns, none of which has sought such extensive compensation, will be monitoring the negotiations.

“We’ll have our eye on it,” said Santa Barbara County Administrator Mike Brown. He said a recent county survey put the price tag of housing UC Santa Barbara at $4.2 million.

“We’re worse off than Berkeley,” Brown said. “At least they have a mitigation agreement. We don’t have anything like that.”

Three years ago the city of Santa Cruz reached an agreement with UC Santa Cruz to pay the city $70,000 a year in return for the university buying a hotel and taking it off the city’s tax rolls.

The university made its first payment three years ago, but hasn’t paid since, said Santa Cruz Assistant City Manager Martin Bernal.

“It’s a difficult issue,” Bernal said. “They are a burden, but overall it’s better to have a UC than not have one. “It’s what’s made the city.”

The next move in the struggle over Berkeley’s troubled Blood House may be a physical move from its present location.

That’s what a majority of Zoning Adjustment Board members hinted Thursday night when the Blood House made its fifteenth appearance on ZAB’s agenda, two days short of a year since the first hearing on the historic house’s future.

Though no formal proposal was on the table, ZAB members indicated they’d look favorably on plans to move the house, provided the new location proves suitable and the historic structure is restored.

The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the 1891 Queen Anne Victorian a Structure of Merit five years ago—a move that places formidable obstacles in the path of anyone intent on tearing it down.

Developer Ruegg & Ellsworth wants to build a five-story, 44-unit apartment complex at the Blood House’s current location at 2526 Durant Ave., but plans to demolish the 113-year-old dwelling foundered on strong opposition from preservationists.

On March 13, ZAB members voted unanimously to deny demolition of the house and signaled they wouldn’t look favorably on any plans that didn’t spare the dwelling—leading to Thursday night’s new proposal.

The move was floated jointly by Brendan Heafey, project manager for developer Ruegg & Ellsworth, and Burton Edwards, an architect who recently resigned from the LPC. Edwards was speaking in his capacity as a consultant to Berkeley real estate seller and developer John Gordon.

Gordon proposes to relocate two landmarked houses onto two lots he owns at Dwight Way and Regent Street, a block north of Telegraph Avenue. The property currently houses a parking lot and a small structure.

Besides the Blood House, Douglas proposes to bring in the UC-owned John Woolley House—now at 2509 Haste St. and adjacent to People’s Park—which dates from 1876 and is on the California State Historic Resources Inventory. It would be the first move for the Blood House and the second for the Woolley home, Edwards said.

Debra Sanderson, the city principal planner advising ZAB, said she couldn’t make any recommendations because neither Ruegg & Ellsworth or Gordon had submitted anything to city staff.

Before Heafey had even risen to declare “I’m happy to report we’ve found a way to save the Blood House,” preservationist Doug Buckwald—who lives just three blocks from the house—had already risen to protest the idea of a move, which he said would diminish the historic character of the neighborhood.

Heafey said Gordon first suggested to him that the Blood House moved on March 24, when both were attending a convention in Monterey. He said the option to move the home “has been available all along in the Environmental Impact Report” prepared for the original project.

Heafey said the developers had already received assurances from movers and public utilities with wires and cables along the path of the move that the house could be safely transported down city streets once its roof was removed.

“At the end of the day you get a house that’s moved three blocks south and restored by a respected preservation architect,” Heafey said, calling his solution “a pretty neat concept.”

Edwards told ZAB members that Gordon plans to convert both houses into multiple residential units, with the final number to be decided by economic factors. “It could require some addition to the Blood House,” he acknowledged.

The degree of restoration of the Blood House depends on finances and on the amount of original detail still present beneath a stucco finish that was added sometime after the house was first built, Edwards said.

The architect also acknowledged that Gordon would need zoning variances to site the two structures on a pair of lots totaling 5,800 square feet.

ZAB member Laurie Capitelli said he’d want to make sure that any permit to building the new apartment complex was contingent on a simultaneous approval for the Blood House move.

One possible glitch is that Douglas’ lots may be substandard for houses as large as he proposes to site on them.

“We need to analyze the property under” the California Environmental Quality Act “and our zoning ordinances to see how it fits under them,” Sanderson said. But that can’t happen until the developers submit a formal proposal.

Under CEQA, moving a historic structure is equivalent to demolition and constitutes an alternative available only if there are no other options to keep the building intact.

Three months ago, the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association submitted an alternative proposal to leave the house on its original site, subdividing it into five apartments and adding an L-shaped 35-unit building nearby on the same lot.

Developer Patrick Kennedy, who had earlier praised the concept, rose Thursday night to endorse the proposed move and declare that the BAHA plan “does not work financially. I am confident it will never get built.”

Kennedy also said he didn’t favor limiting the move to the Dwight and Regent property “because that gives John Gordon too much power in this decision, and it might cause the deal to go sideways.”

Gordon handles many of the commercial leases in Kennedy’s own mixed-used projects.

Several prominent preservationists rose to attack the proposed move.

Sharon Hudson said “the developers and the university have come up with a plan that furthers all their development desires and the Blood House is a pawn,” and declared that “we should not be playing musical chairs with our historic buildings except in the most extreme circumstances.”

BAHA President Wendy Markel said the house “shouldn’t be moved,” but retained on site “as an example of what used to be in that neighborhood.”

Lesley Emmington Jones, a member of the Landmarks Preservation Commission and a BAHA staffer, complained that the landmarks panel wasn’t being kept in the loop. She also requested financial projections demonstrating the developers’ claims that the Durant Street project would fail unless the Blood House is moved.

Heafey and Rick Spickert of Oliver & Co., a construction firm, said their analysis showed that the project wouldn’t work without a move.

By the time the hearing drew to an end, only ZAB member Carrie Sprague was voicing unequivocal opposition to a Blood House relocation, with the other members indicating they’d look favorably on a proposal that guaranteed a move.

Member Dave Blake said any proposal he could accept would have to include secure funding for restoration.

Though member Christina Tiedemann said she wasn’t pleased to be asked to consider a move without having more information on the BAHA proposal, she said “moving could be a terrific solution.”

Sanderson said a mitigation measure in the project EIR would allow the developer to make the house available for a move by another developer, but she couldn’t comment further until city staff had a firm proposal in hand.

At Sanderson’s urging, the Blood House was removed from ZAB’s calendar until such time as the developers return with a firm proposal.

After temporarily being saved from total elimination, the UC Institute for Labor and Employment (ILE) is on the chopping block again as part of what institute employees say is an attack on labor rights and the interests of working people across California.

Calling their department the only office in the University of California system dedicated to labor research, ILE employees expressed outrage last year when their operating budget was written out of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget. Because the ILE was the only UC department to be completely eliminated in the Schwarzenegger budget, the institute’s employees branded the cut a political attack.

The ILE, which runs offices at UC Berkeley and UCLA, was given a temporary reprieve earlier this year when the university gave them operating money from its own budget. In the meantime, the ILE and their supporters successfully lobbied both houses of the state Legislature, eventually winning legislative approval for $3.8 million of the institute’s original $4 million budget.

But before the money is guaranteed, it has to be approved by the governor, and ILE employees are rallying support to ensure Schwarzenegger comes through.

“This is not a budget cut,” said Peter Olney, the director for the ILE office at UC Berkeley. “This is a clear political attack on an institution that has been there for the labor movement and the working people of California.”

Since forming in 2000, the ILE has issued a number of reports concerning labor and California workers, many of which have made their way into important policy decisions made by the state. The ILE, while not the only public university labor think tank in the country, is the largest, according to Olney.

And while unabashedly pro-labor, the ILE says that since its inception, it has been struggling to balance out a system that continues to fund pro-business think tanks across the country.

According to Katie Quan, chairperson of the UC Labor Center at UC Berkeley, the service arm of the ILE, the institute was established in 2000 during a period when California’s budget was still operating with a comfortable surplus. Thanks to heavy lobbying by groups representing workers across the state, Quan said, ILE’s budget was approved by the Legislature and signed by then Gov. Gray Davis. But when the state economy began to nose-dive shortly afterwards, she said, the ILE began to suffer cutbacks. From 2000 to 2003, the institute’s operating budget was cut by 33 percent.

“Schwarzenegger's elimination of the ILE set us back to where we were three years ago and widens the gap in funding between management education research and labor education research,” said Quan.

ILE representatives said they were not sure whether Schwarzenegger directly negotiated the cuts to the ILE, but said it is well-known that his chief financial advisor and other finance staff members are both fiscally and politically conservative.

Representatives form Schwarzenegger's finance office did not return calls about the ILE cuts.

Among the issues that ILE research covers are living wage laws, work and family issues, immigrant workers, and the health care crisis. Each year, the institute publishes the “State of California Labor” report.

Among the most recognized research and policy contributions the ILE has made since 2000 include work during the legislative debate over SB2, a bill passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Davis that requires businesses over a certain size to pay a significant portion of employee health benefits. The ILE released a report in the middle of the debate that showed widespread support for the bill among California employers, even though big business groups lobbied against it. It was a revelation that many said was crucial in getting the bill passed.

The ILE has also recently released a report called “The Hidden Public Cost of Low-Wage Jobs in California.” The report documents the tax burden placed on California tax payers by low-wage employers who force their employees to rely on public assistance to stay afloat. According to the report, $10.1 billion of the $21.2 billion in public assistance allotted to low income families in 2002 went to families with at least one working adult, rather than for emergency assistance for families that are unable to find work.

In particular, the report found that workers in the retail industry collectively received $2 billion in assistance, which is over twice the amount received by workers in any other state industry. According to Quan of the Labor Center, the report uncovered programs—such as the one run by Wal-Mart—that provide counseling to employees on how to receive public aid as a supplement to their wages.

Those who rely on ILE research and reports such as the one on low-wage work, call it “imperative” to insure that they continue to have an operating budget.

“This is an invaluable resource for working people of California,” said Nathan Ballard, the spokesperson for the California Labor Federation, the clearing house for all the unions in California.

Ballard said the ILE’s contribution to the policy work done for and by the working people of California is “vital.”

Several academics have also weighed in on the debate, calling the ILE cuts a threat to academic freedom.

“The ILE was a fairly innovative attempt to try and bring more resources to the university to help us understand California workplaces, California families and how policy might improve each of these,” said David Levine, a professor at the UC Berkeley Haas School Of Business and one of several UC professors who has worked with the ILE. “It [the ILE] didn’t last very long, and I think its disappointing that the governor zeroed it out without the normal review process that academic institutions undergo.”

According to Quan of the Labor Center, the budget proposal rescuing the ILE from extinction is in the governor’s office and will be decided upon within the next few days. t

Youth was served Sunday when progressives nominated their slate of four candidates for the Rent Stabilization Board who promise to keep the board decidedly pro-tenant and a spring board for politically active UC students.

Two 19-year-old students, Jesse Arreguin and Jason Overman were nominated, along with incumbent Eleanor Walden and retired attorney Jack Harrison.

The four are almost certain to win election to the nine-member board, which holds staggered elections every two years. Landlords have not run candidates since they were swept in 1998.

Commissioners Paul Hogarth and Judy Ann Alberti opted not to run for a second term, and Chairperson Max Anderson is prohibited from seeking a third term. Rent Board Commissioners receive stipends of $6,000 per year.

The victors were among five candidates that sought the nomination to oversee the city’s 500-page rent control ordinance, manage the board’s $3 million budget, and act as an appeals court in tenant/landlord disputes.

Joe Crowder, a former candidate for City Council and mayor, came up 18 votes shy of winning the final slot.

While the rent board is firmly under the control of pro-tenant advocates, its power has been curtailed in recent years. In 1995, the state Legislature passed the Costa-Hawkins Act that ended rent control on vacant units and single-family dwellings. Since the law went into effect, 61 percent of Berkeley rental units have turned over and have experienced market rate rent increases.

Also, if voters approve this November, the board will no longer set annual rent increases. A settlement reached earlier this year to a lawsuit filed by the Berkeley Property Owners Association would fix rate increases at 65 percent of the Consumer Price Index.

Walden said her biggest priority would be to campaign for an item on the November ballot that would extend rent control to federally subsidized Section 8 housing units in cases when the landlord raised rents, forcing tenants to pay more than 30 percent of their income.

Citing concerns over the habitability of apartment units, Harrison called for the board to organize tenant complaints so residents in substandard housing could win rent reductions. “It would be a short-term improvement to get places fixed up,” he said.

Arreguin, the ASUC Housing Director, said he would push to further tenant outreach and rebuild the tenants union, which emerged in the 1970s to press for rent control and was eventually disbanded after voters passed the ordinance in 1979. Despite a more favorable rental market in recent years, Arreguin said he has heard from numerous UC students that unjust evictions, uninhabitable apartments, and unaffordable rents remain a problem in Berkeley.

Overman, who bested Arreguin by one vote at a student nominating convention last month and was nominated by acclamation Sunday, also backed efforts to better educate and organize tenants and urged the rent board organize a campaign to overturn Costa-Hawkins.

“Students don’t know what rent control is,” he said.

With landlords now free to charge market rates for vacant units, the primary benefactors of rent control are long-term Berkeley tenants.

Arreguin and Overman—the latest in a long line of student advocates to seek a seat on the rent board—are products of an improved Berkeley rental market that has produced little outward protest from students in recent years.

In contrast, commissioners and recent UC Graduates Howard Chong and Paul Hogarth both made headlines long before they were voted to the board, leading student protests during the housing crisis, when tenants complained that landlords were evicting tenants en masse so they could capitalize on market rate rent hikes.

In addressing the convention Sunday, Hogarth said rent control was “the only thing keeping Berkeley from being another bland, boring suburb,” and referred to some landlords as “salivating to get rid of long-term tenants.”

Hogarth said the pro-tenant majority is pushing the City Council to provide more money for tenants forced from their homes by a state law that allows owners to vacate the rental business and has secured services to renters including counseling services, a lobbyist in Sacramento, and direct grants to non-profits that serve low-income tenants.

How the rent board spends its money—which comes from landlord fees—is a major source of irritation to the Berkeley Property Owners Association (BPOA). While the number of appellate decisions made by the rent board declined from 280 in 2001 to 216 in 2003, landlord fees rose eight percent last year.

“Paying for this bureaucracy is a joke,” said BPOA President Michael Wilson. “They refuse to come to grips with the fact that instead of spending $3 million on a program that is less and less important, the money should go directly towards needy tenants.”

So does Wilson plan on running a landlord slate to regain a foothold on the board for the first time since 1998?

“People would rather have their fingernails pulled off with rusty pliers than sit through those meetings,” he said. “The answer is no.”

The students might have gone home for the summer, but concerns about UC Berkeley will be front and center at tonight’s (Tuesday, June 15) City Council meeting.

Just days after councilmembers received a study spelling out UC’s cost to the city in unpaid services and taxes, the council is set to receive the city manager’s still-unreleased final report on the university’s Long Range Development Plan.

Two weeks ago, city staff joined a chorus of criticism lambasting the university for a plan that—by the year 2020—pro-jects 30 percent more parking spaces, 18 percent more building space, 26 percent more staff, 22 percent more dorm beds, and five percent more students, than UC currently has.

Among the chief complaints included UC’s intention to build 2,300 new parking spaces, 1,900 of them on property beside the main campus, and 100 new units of faculty housing in the university’s hill campus. In addition, staff questioned the lack of public input in crafting the development plan, and UC’s decision to separate the long range plan for the campus from that of the neighboring Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

If the UC Board of Regents approves the long range development plan as currently proposed, it will cost the city an additional $1.6 million in unpaid services, according to the fiscal impact study released last week.

Meanwhile, with one week left until the city is scheduled to pass its fiscal year 2005 budget, councilmembers will get a final opportunity to propose amendments to help close the city’s $10.3 million shortfall. Two proposals on the table include a recommendation from Mayor Tom Bates to provide six months of additional funding to several nonprofit community agencies before voters decide on tax measures that could sustain funding for the agencies indefinitely, and a recommendation from Councilmember Dona Spring to restore money to several community organizations and add money for traffic circles and creek restoration.

At its 5 p.m. work session tonight before the regular meeting, the council will discuss four proposed tax measures for the November ballot that would raise about $7 million.

At the 7 p.m. meeting, the council is scheduled to conduct six public hearings, five on new fees for ambulance use, fire inspection, marina use, false alarms and animal adoptions, and the sixth on the proposed Berkeley Hills Fire Station.

Peter and Andrea Cukor have led a long and lonely battle against the proposed fire station at 3000 Shasta Road, which would be built near their home. The couple lost a court battle last year trying to stop construction of the fire house, first planned in 1992, which the Cukors say is poorly designed and not worth the estimated $3 million cost to build.

The firehouse, which would be paid for with money from a 1992 city bond measure, enjoys widespread community support, however, and the council is expected to deny the Cukors’ appeal of a use permit granted by the city’s Zoning Adjustment Board.

At tonight’s regular meeting, the council will also get to weigh in on an issue that extends far outside of Berkeley’s city limits.

The Peace and Justice Commission is asking the council to adopt a resolution to recommend amendment of the federal and state constitutions on corporations. The commission wants the federal and state governments to retract clauses that grant corporations the protections or rights of persons. In addition, the commission wants a declaration that the expenditure of corporate money is not a form of constitutionally protected speech.

If the council passes the resolution, a copy would be sent to local, state and federal legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. City Manager Phil Kamlarz took no position on the commission’s recommendation.

Berkeley Police are asking the public to help them identify and apprehend the two men who abducted a woman pedestrian last Wednesday and forced her into a car where she was raped, then dropped off in Oakland.

Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies said the kidnapping occurred around 3 p.m. on June 9 at the intersection of University Avenue and Bonar Street.

One of the men flashed a pistol as they forced the woman into their car, a late model silver Mercedes or similar vehicle with shiny chrome tire rims and a gray interior.

The driver sped away, and the assault occurred inside the vehicle, Okies said.

One of the assailants is described as a short—5’3” to 5’4”—slight African American man, age 18-20, weighing about 140 pounds with untinted hair in one-inch twists. He was wearing blue jeans, a black T-shirt with red lettering on the back, and extensive jewelry.

The second assailant is described as a slim African American male wearing a white baseball cap with yellow trim on the bill and clad i n number necklaces and rings.

Okies urged anyone with information on the crime to e-mail tips to police@berkeley.ci.us or call the Berkeley Police Robbery Detail at 981-5742.

SAN FRANCISCO—In the 1980s, as a Nicaraguan child, I had dreams of Presidente Reagan dying of a heart attack in the middle of a speech. I thought his death would bring the war to an end. Then there would be no more low-flying “black birds” (spy planes) breaking the sound barrier several times a day during school hours.

One spring morning in 1981 I saw my mother and some neighbors digging a big hole in my beloved rose garden. “There’s a new president in the United States,” she said. “And he doesn’t like the Revolution. Almost certainly, we’re going to have a war. The hole is going to be our refugio (refuge) if their airplanes come looking for us. We’ll hide in there.”

Later, when the terrible war did come and the United States put up and armed the counterrevolutionary Contras, I dreamt that if Reagan died there would be no more bombed health clinics or hospitals. There would be no more empty shelves in the supermarket. And most important, the “Death Truck” wouldn’t drive down my street every week.

The Death Truck was a big military truck, Russian-made, that delivered the corpses of young soldiers. My neighborhood was overwhelmingly Sandinista, hence, many of the youth in my barrio volunteered before they were old enough to get drafted. The truck would drive by slowly, staining the air with the stench of rotten humans wrapped in black plastic bags. Everyone froze while that damned truck drove by. Folks prayed it wouldn’t stop in front of their house.

The most disgraceful assignment for anyone in the Ejercito Popular Sandinista (the Sandinista armed forces) was to be the young man on the passenger seat of the Death Truck. His job was to notify the family he was delivering a corpse. Before the kid could hop off the truck, somebody’s mother, wife, sister, uncle, brother, son or daughter was already on the sidewalk weeping.

The delivery soldier was required to make a dreadful speech as the black plastic bag was laid on the sidewalk in front of the house. While a Nicaraguan flag was draped on the body bag he would recite: “In the name of the People’s Sandinista Revolution, we sadly inform you that (rank and name of person being delivered) has fallen (circumstances of death, i.e. ambush, ground combat, land mine, air raid...) in defense of the freedom and dignity of the Nicaraguan people. In the name of the Ejercito Popular Sandinista, we express our deepest regret and condolences to your family.”

The soldier would then salute the wailing mother, wife or whoever was there and hand them the dog tag, some paperwork, and any personal effects the soldier might have had.

Then everyone knew what to do—collect coffee, sugar and bread among all the neighbors to pull together a wake. The neighborhood carpenter would improvise a coffin with wood that sometimes came off somebody’s wall or chicken coop. A man once told me that he made over 700 coffins during the war for young men he had seen grow up.

My black mourning clothes turned gray from wearing them so much. By the time I turned 12, I had five dog tags hanging from my neck. The guys’ moms or wives or sisters gave them to me in appreciation for help I might have given in organizing the funeral—collecting the sugar, washing the coffee cups, or walking long distances to get bread from a relative in a different neighborhood.

There weren’t many girls my age in my neighborhood, so I hung out mostly with the boys. After Hurricane Joan left Nicaragua flooded in 1988, all the boys in my neighborhood vowed to serve. My boys all got up on one of those military trucks, with their camouflage pants and green T-shirts, with red bandanas tied to their necks (worn by youth volunteers, ages 16 to 18), and their AK-47s. They waved good-bye and blew kisses. The truck disappeared, and all the women hugged each other and wept.

My boys came home one by one, most of them dead, one without legs, and another insane.

Information that has come out since the Iran-Contra arms smuggling scandal has documented how the Reagan administration actively tried to overthrow the Sandinista government. Back then, I could only dream of Presidente Reagan’s death. I dreamt his body would be inside those makeshift coffins.

Sixteen years later, he has finally died.

But Reagan would need to die 60,000 more times, to make up for the lives lost during his watch. God forgive me, but I hope hell has a VIP lounge for him to suffer the torture and terror he imposed on us. Our only sin was to be living in Nicaragua.

“La Segua,” a 28-year-old Nicaraguan woman now living in the United States, has written for YO! Youth Outlook, a magazine by and about Bay Area Youth and a project of Pacific News Service.

BUENOS AIRES—In April, approximately 150,000 Argentines filled the streets of downtown Buenos Aires in one of the country’s largest demonstrations since democracy was restored 20 years ago. The organizer did not belong to any of the county’s internationally renowned human rights groups, however. Juan Carlos Blumberg was virtually unknown until the murder of his 23-year-old son Axel, the latest casualty in Argentina’s growing crime wave.

The turnout stunned Argentine President Nestor Kirchner. The demonstration that Kirchner had anticipated and wanted to capitalize on occurred one week earlier at the ESMA Navy Mechanics School, the most notorious torture center during Argentina’s 1976-83 Dirty War, a military crackdown that resulted in 30,000 deaths. Here, Kirchner converted ESMA into a museum of remembrance for the families of the victims, known as the disappeared. The famous human rights group Madres de Plaza de Mayo co-led the march, yet only 35,000 Argentines attended.

The relatively small ESMA turnout has forced the Argentine president to rethink his priorities. Kirchner, who completed his first year in office last week, had tried to make the Dirty War’s unfinished business a signature issue. However, many ordinary Argentines have neither the interest nor the luxury to get caught up in the politics of the past. Surviving the present is their concern, and Blumberg’s son, not the disappeared, is on their minds.

Jorge Delprato, a restaurateur in the upscale neighborhood of Belgrano, welcomes the change, saying that by comparison, “the ESMA event was political demagoguery with no relation to the priorities of my customers.”

The economy is poor Argentines’ main concern. Alberto Aguero, 72, scavenges the trash each night for cardboard boxes, plastic bottles, anything recyclable that will fetch him a few pesos. He says he is worse off than he was one year ago. About Kirchner’s revisiting the past, he says, “I don’t care about that stuff. I want my job back.”

One of Kirchner’s first official acts requested that Congress annul a law passed during the 1990s granting immunity to high-ranking military officials from the Dirty War. The ESMA dedication continued his reckoning with the past.

To Kirchner’s credit, many Argentine political analysts testified to the event’s symbolic importance. Family members of the disappeared were visibly moved. Maria Laura Gullo’s grandmother was murdered at ESMA. “It was important to be there,” she says, “to support the President’s decision, and finally have somewhere I can take flowers to my grandmother.”

Julio Burdman, a political analyst with the polling firm Nueva Mayoria, says his most recent data showed 54 percent of Argentines support Kirchner’s position on human rights and 77 percent support his overall performance. Kirchner was elected with 22 percent of the vote.

Alicia Ocariz also attended the ceremony. Her husband disappeared when their daughter was two months old. But, she says, “I don’t belong to any human rights organizations. I don’t have time.”

Argentina, many Argentines say, has had 20 years to deal with its past. While its professional human rights activists are admired from London to Los Angeles, its citizens have had to navigate one financial meltdown after another. Nueva Mayoria’s poll that gave Kirchner high marks also showed that among Argentines’ priorities, human rights did not make the top ten. Kirchner’s signature issue was a priority for only one percent of Argentines.

Instead, along with the economy, crime is a top concern, particularly among the middle class. In addition to the sheer numbers who took to the streets during the Blumberg march, many were first-time protesters. Absent were the usual political banners. Ubiquitous were Argentine flags and photos of young Blumberg.

Blumberg’s murder has galvanized the country and has given his father unprecedented access to politicians. Within eight days of the march the Argentine Senate passed a sweeping anti-crime bill. Julio Burdman observed that for the first time in 17 years, Argentine legislators worked the day before the week-long holiday Semana Santa.

While many Argentines want to move forward, Alberto Amato, a journalist with the Argentine daily Clarin, says, “We cannot deal with present problems until we deal with the past. It is impossible to forget the past.”

He argues that one march is no substitute for creating institutions of a civil society. The Argentine middle class is not known for embracing participatory democracy, ironically, perhaps another reason that many of the past’s human rights issues remain unresolved. Amato adds, “The middle class has never taken responsibility for its government. It should take more interest in the country.”

When Patrick Kennedy rose to address Zoning Assessment Board members about the Blood House during ZAB’s regular meeting last week, David Blake took advantage of the controversial developer’s presence to ask Kennedy about the long-empty “cultural use space” in the Gaia Building on Allston Way.

By devoting the ground floor to cultural use, Kennedy was able to add extra height to the building under city regulations that give additional “bonus” space for cultural uses and dedicated low-income housing.

The Gaia’s first projected tenant, the Gaia Bookstore, declared bankruptcy before the building was finished, and two other tenants fell through because of the high costs of finishing the space. The Gaia is now projecting using the space to house a jazz cafe to be owned and operated by local businesswoman Anna De Leon.

Unlike the earlier would-be tenants, De Leon’s cafe is not a nonprofit organization.

“You sent Anna De Leon here to argue successfully that we reduce” the building’s first floor cultural use space, Blake said, “and she hasn’t moved in yet. When is that going to happen?”

When Kennedy said De Leon “is doing her improvements right now,” Blake again pressed for a date.

“In as much as I’ve been saying this for the past three years, I’m reticent to suggest an actual date,” Kennedy responded, “but I think its safe to say that sometime soon after August she plans to be opening.”

In most countries it is recognized as one of the world’s most powerful organizations. This spring, it is celebrating its 100th anniversary with pomp and circumstance, including photo exhibitions, emotive tributes and a flurry of press attention.

Yet FI FA, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, international soccer’s governing body, is virtually unknown here in the United States.

Almost everywhere else—in France, Brazil or Iran—soccer fans regard the acronym with a mixture of dread an d respect. FIFA’s sole business, since it was launched in Paris in 1904, is overseeing the corrupt and unruly multi-billion dollar business of international soccer.

The federation has a classic pyramidal structure. It grants membership to one soccer ass ociation from any “independent state recognized by the international community.” A new state, like East Timor (which still has not been accepted into the “FIFA family”) must apply to FIFA for recognition if it wants to participate in world soccer. This st ructure guarantees FIFA monopoly power over the sport.

Today, it has 205 members—New Caledonia being the most recent addition—all associations. These, in turn, typically field national teams and organize internal leagues and club teams.

With this stru cture, FIFA was global long before globalization became a buzzword. Before World War II, then-president Jules Rimet was fond of pointing out that FIFA already had more members than the League of Nations.

FIFA exercises incredible influence over a countr y’s international image as it suspends and sanctions members or hands out its greatest plum: the World Cup, which it organizes every four years.

It’s no surprise then that federation executives normally have access to the highest levels of political pow er. Last month, in an announcement timed to coincide with its centennial celebrations, FIFA picked South Africa to host the 2010 World Cup, the first time world soccer’s signature event will be held in Africa.

According to South Africa’s Sunday Argus newspaper, few of the jubilant South Africans knew that their President Thabo Mbeki and greatest statesman Nelson Mandela helped clinch the deal in closed-door meetings with FIFA executive committee members.

Yet the federation’s leaders are equally adept at bestowing sanctions as favors, and are jealous of their power. On June 2 FIFA announced Kenya’s suspension from international soccer and the next World Cup because of the Kenyan government’s decision to “interfere” in the country’s national soccer asso ciation. Many Kenyans were outraged by the FIFA ban, saying the government had intervened only to stamp out corruption.

When he travels, FIFA President Joseph “Sepp” Blatter is received with the same protocol as a head of state, “something that only ha ppens with the president of the International Olympic Committee,” writes Elizabeth Mora Mass, columnist with New York City Spanish-language daily El Diario/La Prensa.

Yet unlike a head of state, she says, the federation’s president “gives little public accounting of his activities.”

FIFA’s lack of transparency is well known to soccer journalists worldwide. In addition to the absence of real oversight of its activities, FIFA is headquartered in Zurich, where the Swiss legal system that prizes financia l privacy acts as a further deterrent to scrutiny.

Not surprisingly, FIFA powerbrokers are too often the targets of accusations of mismanagement, cronyism and corruption as hundreds of millions of dollars worth of contracts are negotiated, including th e lucrative TV rights to World Cup games, which are watched by over 30 billion people.

Since the organization’s beginning in 1904 it has had only eight presidents, and the last two, Brazilian João Havelange and Blatter, a Swiss, have helped transform FI FA into a global sports juggernaut but also imbued it with an imperiousness that is now part of its organizational culture.

As an Associated Press reporter I covered the 2001 FIFA under-17 soccer world championship in Trinidad and Tobago. Jack A. Warner, a Trinidadian tycoon and FIFA vice-president, was accused of playing favorites by funneling lucrative contracts to family and cronies.

During a testy press conference, Warner and Blatter lashed out at reporters (Warner insinuated I wasn’t old enough t o be challenging his management of the championship) and refused to answer questions about why Warner’s family was raking in millions of dollars in tournament-related business.

If Blatter was reluctant to investigate there were ample reasons. He was fac ing an election and needed Warner’s support to fend off a challenge to his presidency, tainted by charges of financial mismanagement, cash-for-votes allegations, and the still murky collapse of FIFA’s marketing arm, which controlled television rights to t he 2006 World Cup in Germany.

With Warner’s help, though, Blatter was re-elected the next year; both he and Warner still hold on to their posts today and still are among the most powerful officials of the 24-member Executive Committee. The next election s are in 2007.

Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona, who led his team to win the 1986 Mexico World Cup, famously called FIFA a “mafia, a sect.” The accusation may be exaggerated, but it is not off the mark in at least one sense: Like a criminal organization or a cult, FIFA answers to no earthly power.

Marcelo Ballve is a former reporter for the Associated Press in Brazil and the Caribbean and covered international soccer.

A Berkeley man learned a harsh lesson Saturday: It’s a bad idea to try to blowtorch the ivy off your walls.

Berkeley firefighters were summoned to the residence at 2907 Forest Ave. Saturday after a neighbor spotted white smoke billowing from the attic.

As they prepared to battle the flames, firefighters plucked a stranded painter from an exterior platform.

Before the fire was doused, firefighters had to cut a major hole in the roof to contain a blaze that had damaged the att ic and one room beneath, said Deputy Fire Chief David Orth.

Investigators learned that the painting crew had already finished the interior and was starting on the outside when the owner took a blowtorch to some obstinate paint and to some ivy tightly cli nging to the walls.

The fire then followed the ivy through a breach in the walls and into the attic.

“People shouldn’t be using torches to burn away weeds or paint,” said Orth, “especially when we’re already into the fire season.”

Orth estimated the da mage to the home at $50,000.

Students Graduate Fire Department Program

The Berkeley Fire Department held graduation ceremonies of its own last week, honoring the 23 high school-aged youths who attended the department’s Third Annual Youth Academy.

Students spent 14 Saturdays with engine crews, learning the day-to-day routines of Berkeley firefighters and receiving introductory training in deploying hoses and the art of spraying water and earning their CPR certifications.

“They get to do ride-alongs,” too, said Orth, “but the highlight of the class is when they get to rappel off our training tower.”

The course is so popular that one graduate had attended both previous sessions and another graduate had attended last year’s program.

Four young males, one clad all in pink, attacked a hapless pedestrian last Thursday near the corner of Arch and Cedar streets.

After taking a punch, the pedestrian gave over his wallet and the quartet fled.

Another Gan g, Another Wallet

A teenager confronted by an ethnically mixed band of fellow teens at the corner of Prince Street and Claremont Avenue did the wise thing and relinquished his wallet.

Less wisely, he waited more than two hours before calling the cops—by which time the Future Felons of America had long since vanished.

Bandit Makes Collection at Church

Police were summoned to Northbrae Community Church early Friday afternoon after a church worker discovered that someone had slipped into the office and slipped out with the cash.

No one saw who did it, said Berkeley Police Spokesperson Officer Joe Okies.

Booster Grabs Costly Blender

A shopper gave himself a five-finger discount on a very expensive blender at Berkeley Sur La Table shortly after 1:30 Friday afternoon. Police have a description of the suspect.

Another ‘Rat Pack’ Robbery

“Rat Packs” are what police call the gangs of juveniles who commit robbery by swarming their suspects—apparently the crime de jour in Berkeley of late.

A gang of five assailed a hapless pedestrian at Dohr and Oregon, shoving and strong-arming until he did the smart thing and parted with his wallet.

WorldCom Loses a Laptop

The communications giant that perpetrated a multi-billion-dollar accounting fraud to hype its s tock price became a victim in Berkeley Friday when someone walked into the telecom’s 831 Gilman Street offices and walked out with one of their laptop computers.

Beyond that, police have little 4-1-1.

One Last Gang of Four Report

Four brazen bandits co nfronted a pedestrian at the Ashby BART station shortly after 2 p.m., strong-arming their prey until he handed over his money.ôµ

My father left for work at dawn, wearing dungarees and a blue button-down cotton workshirt. On his feet he wore heavy woolen white socks and brown scuffed round-toed boots. He walked fast with a slight bend forward across the front yard and driveway and entered a nearby red barn. That is how he began every day, for more than 40 years—sprinting across grass and gravel to an outbuilding where he raised rodents for a living.

It may seem a peculiar occupation for those whose fathers wore ties, carried brief cases and took the bus to Philadelphia or drove in the morning carpool to a modern office building in a sterile suburban center. My daddy didn’t go far. He was always home for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He never owned an attaché case and he never wore a suit to work.

My father built a small eclectic empire of rats and mice, guinea pigs, hamsters and gerbils. It was hard physical labor, but work that he enjoyed. He cleaned rat boxes, fed and watered mice, bred guinea pigs and hamsters, and tried to keep his gerbils happy. He kept records with thick black Magic Markers on the sides of plastic rat and mice boxes, recording the approximate dates of conception, birth and separation. Hamsters and guinea pigs were more difficult to keep accounts for as they d idn’t mate with just anyone. And gerbils were impossibly monogamous. With rats and mice it was one male to three females, six days of wild, orgy-like sex, four weeks of gestation, one month before mother and babies were divided. But gerbils were persnicke ty. They had to be friends in order to copulate.

Gender was identified by lifting up hairless tails, except for the guinea pigs and hamsters who were turned over and studied. The animals were segregated by sex, age, weight and health. Rodents who were si ck or vicious were disposed of by a yank of the tail and a swift whack on the head against a building support beam. It was a violent ending, but quick and efficient.

The rooms where my father toiled were covered in sawdust and grime. They smelled of ammonia and rot from urine and feces and they were forever dusty and hot. When you walked up the wooden steps to the outer chamber where the guinea pigs and gerbils lived in wooden boxes with screen tops, your eyes began to water and your nose filled with an acrid, unpleasant smell. The mouth became parched and it was difficult to breathe. A constant scratching noise and high-pitched peeps and squeals let you know that the animals were busy. A thousand pairs of curious pink and pale blue eyes peeked out of sm all holes, whiskers quivering, tails vibrating and thumping. Every day my father was greeted with the sounds and scents of breeding and birthing, life and death.

Because of my father, once a year, between second and fifth grades, I was the most important kid in my grammar school class. My teachers would arrange to bring my classmates to dad’s rodent ranch to learn about the facts of life. Other kid’s dads might teach their school chums how to throw a football or when to swing a bat, but my daddy shared w ith my schoolyard friends life’s most important, sacred secrets: furry mothers caring for their naked pink babies, fastidious hamsters building soft round nests, immaculate gerbils self-cleaning their cages and falling in love.

Other kids’ dads came home at precisely six o’clock, irritable from a day watching the stock market go up and down, or selling car insurance, their eyes tired and their fingers cramped. My father returned to our house late in the evening, often after dark, smelling of sweat and sa wdust and domesticated guinea pigs. He provided a safe, loving and prosperous home for my brothers and me. And I will always be grateful for his important gift to my childhood development and later fragile adult psyche by making me the most popular kid in my class, for one day of every year.›

“Our class is run like a college studio with college-level projects, medium, and materials,” Cragmont Elementary School art teacher Joe McClain explained. He was busy readying the classroom for the third and fourth graders who were about to appear. In hi s Bermuda shorts and abstract art t-shirt he hurried around the room, which was colorfully jumbled with student art, easels and supplies, throwing me information along the way.

The Cragmont art program is paid for by the Berkeley Schools Excellence Proje ct (BSEP), a Berkeley property tax originally approved by Berkeley voters in 1986. BSEP supports class size reduction, music, libraries, as well as allocating funds to each school to use as it sees fit for enrichment programs. Cragmont’s art program comes out of the school’s site enrichment funds.

BSEP will expire in 2006. In anticipation of the fast approaching time for renewing this important tax (the district will put it on the ballot this year), I decided to visit a few of the programs schools are cu rrently providing with their site enrichment funds, to see how things are going.

Joe enlisted my help distributing cut and ripped pieces of magazine paper, pastels, and glue, around the tables. This week’s project would be making collages in preparation for an upcoming field trip to the Romare Bearden exhibit at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art. The students filed quietly into the room. Joe showed them where to sit, leaving room for expected students from the special education class to intersperse. Joe took a quick few minutes to explain Bearden’s “scrap art” techniques. Then he set them loose: “Lay out your scraps, fill in the blank spaces with whatever you want.” The students dug into the pile of paper scraps, picking through and selecting, some d iscussing their approach with others at their table. Every student was on task. Joe wanted me to make a collage, too, so I found a seat and joined in. The art class lasts an hour and a half and as its end approached, Joe cheerfully began a countdown. We a ll worked madly in productive frenzied harmony. Those who finished early began cleaning up, in the midst of others still gluing and coloring. When time ran out, everyone turned in their completed collage, said goodbye to Joe, and returned to their regular classroom.

Meanwhile, at King Middle School, Jan Sells, a licensed psychotherapist, has been counseling students for 15 years with BSEP site enrichment funding. Jan has bootstrapped her half-time BSEP-funded position (with another portion of her salary cobbled together from other sources) into a counseling program with 11 therapists, including seven interns who she supervises (she started out at King as an intern, herself) and three volunteer licensed therapists. That’s a lot of bang for the buck! “The reputation is, kids this age don’t open up, and it’s the opposite,” Jan said. More than 100 students out of a school of 875 are seeing counselors. That’s a lot! Their backgrounds represent the demographics of the school. Most are self-referred, having le arned about the program through Jan’s extensive outreach to sixth grade classes, as well as word of mouth. “Kids talk about suicide a lot…running away from home, …issues of sexual identity, physical abuse, a lot of bereavement and grief issues, … sex, pre gnancy, bullying, and just your day-to-day issues of social acceptance, peer pressure, loneliness, and feeling left out.” Counselors work with families when appropriate, and utilize conflict resolution when students involved agree. Students apparently fin d the counseling helpful, with most returning for multiple sessions.

We took a tour of the counseling annex. The offices have been colorfully painted by interns in lavender and beige, electric turquoise and mint green. Comfy looking couches are covered w ith flowered throws. Posters, drawings, feathers, sand trays with accompanying toy figures, and art supplies fill the walls and countertops

As Jan walked me out she called to a student on the playground. It was time for his counseling appointment. She ex plained that this procedure was O.K. because at King, there is no shame in seeing a counselor. He ran up and greeted her with a huge smile.

Le Conte Elementary School uses some of its BSEP site enrichment funds to support its long-standing farm and gard en program. I visited on one of those first warm days in March. The main garden area is long and lush with a variety of vegetables, climbing roses, and other plants, all in the central courtyard of the school building. Hens pecked along one side of the ga rden while a denim capped scarecrow oversaw the other side. This program, like many others, is pieced together from a variety of sources. “Farmer” Ben Goff who runs the program is paid out of grant funds. BSEP site enrichment funds help pay for AmeriCorps Volunteer Tanya Stiller, Ben’s assistant. Here’s another example of how a small sum can literally blossom into a substantial program. The class began with students flopping down at the picnic table in the cool shade under an awning. Ben helped students l isten to their hearts with stethoscopes before and after doing jumping jacks. Tanya then took them into the garden where they began preparing beds for planting. As they cut up “cover crop” to turn it back into the soil, a licorice-like aroma wafted throug h the air. This particular class was “dual immersion,” with each student speaking English and Spanish, and the chatter in both languages intermingled. One boy teased about whether he should kill a ladybug (“No!”). There were a few shrieks over snails.

“T he kids love it because it’s a different way of learning…an experiential opportunity,” Tanya told me. Students experience all aspects of gardening, as well as anatomy and physiology of plants, respect for living things and the environment, nutrition and h ealthy lifestyles. They taste everything they grow, and contribute lettuce to the school salad bar. “Those days it gets eaten up,” Tanya said.

Our schools have been relying on local funding from BSEP for many years to provide valuable and critical progr ams that because of inadequate state funding, the district could not otherwise afford. This is money that is carefully and well-spent. BSEP is up for renewal soon. We can’t afford not to support it.

Berkeley has always supported the protection of the natural habitat for wildlife and creeks. Now others are joining the fight to preserve our open spaces and creeks. Friends of Garrity Creek are fighting a proposed 40-home development that will destroy 1 0 beautiful acres and threaten Garrity Creek that is fed by two natural springs at it’s headwaters and ends when it flows into the San Pablo Bay. The proposed subdivision is SD 01 8533 and is on very steep land behind Hilltop Drive in El Sobrante.

Almos t 400 residents signed petitions in addition to the 540 homes in Hilltop Green with 2,000 residents opposing this development. The Richmond City Council voted for requiring an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) in addition to the Hilltop Green Homeowners a ssociation, Manor Neighborhood Association, Friends of Garrity Creek, Hilltop Neighborhood Association, and the El Sobrante Planning and Zoning Advisory Committee. The county ignored the request and issued a negative declaration stating that no significan t impact or no impact would result to the traffic, environment and a host of other conditions including building on steep land in violation of the county’s own ordinance that says land with slopes of 26 percent or more shall remain as open space.

The 10 acres and Garrity Creek should remain in their natural states and should be acquired for a neighborhood park. Residents are willing to raise the required funds to purchase the property.

The first public hearing before the Contra Costa County Planning C ommission to approve the 40-home development was held on May 25 and was well-attended, with standing room only. The hearing was continued to June 8 because so many people spoke against the project and for an EIR due to the significant damage that will occ ur as a result of traffic, drainage, unstable steep slopes, environment, wildlife, habitat that is now food for wildlife, and to the Creek. At the June 8 meeting, the Planning Commission voted 4-2 in favor of the subdivision (Hyman Wong, Richard Clark, Ma rvin Terrell and John Hancock in favor, Len Batagglia and Steven Mehlman against). Steven Mehlman and Planning Commission Chair Len Battagglia requested an EIR.

Friends of Garrity Creek have hired a well-known law firm noted for it’s understanding of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and will appeal to the county Board of Supervisors by the June 18 deadline.

El Sobrante resident Barbara A. Pendergrass is a member of Friends of Garrity Creek. For more information and ways you can help, visit www.geocities.com/hilltopcreek or call Barbara at 223-6091.

It’s not just drivers going crazy these days. Parkers have reached a point where they’re a danger to life and limb. As far as customer service, forget it.

Recently my battery failed at Berkeley Bowl parking lot. I had more than $1 50 worth of perishable food in my steaming trunk. The Berkeley Bowl’s customer service employee, a younger woman, added to my problems, insisting that she couldn’t help me and that after all, I didn’t need to shop there. Her only advice to me was to ask s omeone in the parking lot for a jump, which resulted in my tying up the time of a very nice young man, who was finally unable to help and nervously left after a half hour when another customer went into road rage and called the police on us. So much for a good Samaritan.

Yes, I admit, by this time I was swearing.

Another employee, realizing that customer service had failed totally to help me, took my ice cream into the cooler, guided me to a pay phone and spoke soothing words.

I decided after witnessi ng a bad scene in the parking lot months ago that Berkeley Bowl needed to hire a parking attendant. The fact that they don’t is one reason I limit my shopping there. In discussing these happenings with other group members of my organization of elderly peo ple, the Gray Panthers, I found that one of the members had earlier written to Berkeley Bowl about hiring an attendant who could solve these matters quickly and with only a few words. Long’s Drugs, for instance, has an attendant in a very small lot. I spo ke to him today and he said that, yes, people get crazy in parking lots.

Life is too short to spend two hours wrangling in the parking lot. I don’t know if it is possible to pass a city ordinance requiring lots with a large degree of traffic have an att endant, but I will certainly suggest it.

Once I was able to telephone AAA and rescue my melting ice cream, my problem was easily solved.

I recently signed a copy of the ad supporting Rosa Parks School. I made the mistake of signing without carefully reading the full text of the ad. Had I done so, I would not have signed.

While I support and applaud the efforts of the circulators to improve the image of our school and to recruit families to the school, I do not believe that it is appropriate to promise specific things, such as a science fair. A science fair may be desirable, but the decision to have a fair rightly lies with the entire school community; teachers (especially the science teacher), parents and principal.

Our school is hopefully coming out of a period of distrust and in order for healing to take place, all voices must be heard and decision s must be based on a transparent process. If a decision has already been made that there will be a science fair, it was made in private and with no transparency. Such a lack of process will not help.

Joseph Brulenski

Rosa Parks School teacher

•

TRASHED P APERS

Editors, Daily Planet:

I like the Berkeley Daily Planet, and pick it up on the days it comes out. However: I walk in the morning for exercise, and on corners where the Berkeley Daily Planet is in boxes, on Tues. and Fri. the old Daily Planets are i n the trash receptacle nearby. At Derby and College, I often pick up 10-17 old Planets and recycle them in the paper bin our co-op received from the City of Berkeley.

Berkeley has been a leader in recycling. Would it be so difficult for the person who pu ts those old Planets in the trash to put them in the truck and take them to the paper recycling bin that you, I hope, have near the place where the papers are printed?

Julia Craig

•

WHY RUMMY?

Editors, Daily Planet:

I’m against any casinos, Indian or not. From the tone of Richard Brenneman’s article (“Richmond Plans Massive Casino on the Bay,” Daily Planet, June 11-14), he is also against casinos. However, I fail to understand the relevance of the reference to Donald Rumsfeld in the very first sentence. Former Defense Secretary William Cohen’s part in the casino effort seems to stand on its own, so I wonder at the relevance of Donald Rumsfeld to this discussion.

Vince Swanson

•

RICHMOND CASINO

Editors, Daily Planet:

Thank you, Richard Brenneman, for your coverage of the possible casino at Winehaven on Point Molate. Anyone who has not seen this enormous crenelated brick building should go look. It is one of the most amazing buildings in the Bay Area and the views aren’t bad either. Across the street is a group of worker’s cottages, one of the last cohesive groups of such buildings. All are listed on the National Register of Historic Places which hopefully might save them.

Some issues, such as this casino and also the three 18-story residential towers p roposed on the bay side of the Bayview exit off 580, have impacts that are regional and not just local. (Thank you for that article also.) Yet only the Richmond City Council has direct control over them. Competition for the almighty tax dollar has the po tential for some serious planning mistakes. Where is regional land use planning? I believe there isn’t any.

Susan Cerny

•

BUILDING TRUST

Editors, Daily Planet:

Your recent article on Point Molate in Richmond was apparently based upon confidential infor mation recently revealed to a small group representing the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, Save the Bay and Trails for Richmond Action Committee. As an attendee, my impression was that the developers were making an honest attempt to receive feedback fro m the environmental community in order to more carefully tailor the project to meet those concerns before going public. The article seems to suggest that developers and politicians are devious. The one thing that is clear from your article is that certain members who are thought of as spokespersons for the environmental community are devious, dishonest and lacking in moral turpitude. The pity is the actions of perhaps one person will raise doubts about the honesty of the other groups at the meeting and the environmental community in general. So much for trying to build trust. Public beware.

David Dolberg

Vice chair,

Trails for Richmond Action Committee

•

QUESTIONING VALIDITY

Editors, Daily Planet:

The Daily Planet’s recent article about the proposed development of Point Molate has several factual errors and the author uses descriptive adjectives that seem to slant the article towards a specific audience.

I am always concerned when I read articles that have easily verifiable errors stated as fact. It makes me wonder about the validity of the rest of the article that is not as easily verifiable.

In particular:

1. The caption under the photo states “A large casino has been proposed for this ridgetop site on Point Molate in Richmond where the Navy once stored underground fuel containers.”

To begin with, the Navy never owned the ridge and no casinos have ever been proposed for this location. All development has always been slated for the flat area at the bottom of the slopes. Chevron has always owned the ridge.

Secondly, the Navy never “stored” fuel tanks. These tanks were the storage vessels.

2. The property was purchased by the Santa Cruz Oil Company in November of 1941 and not “early 1941” as stated.

3. The Navy didn’t latch onto the site until June 25, 1942 and not later in 1941 as the article states.

4. Significantly more than eight miles of underground pipes have already been removed with another 16-18 miles of pipes remaining, so the statement that “The site was criss-crossed with eight miles of fuel lines” seems to be in error.

5. “The 22 massive underground fuel tanks” is a judgmental description that may have ulterior motives aimed at stirring up the masses against any development (Has the Planet become the mouthpiece for Chevron?). If a 50,000 barrel tank were in my own backyard I might think of it as “massive.” However, aboveground tanks on the other side of the ridge on Chevron’s property are routinely 10 times that size. By today’s standards, the Point Molate tanks are very small.

Furthermore, no mention was made that these underground concrete tanks were designed to withstand the bombing from Japanese planes and have recently been verified and certified as being considerably stronger than designed. Structural load tests have deter mined that sealing them in place poses no environmental or health risks.

6. The Winehaven building is actually 10 times the size stated in the article. At 198,000 square feet, it’s significance to the proposed development has a larger importance and wil l be prominently featured. Furthermore, it’s historical value will also be prominently featured.

7. Lastly, if the Daily Planet has any evidence that Upstream Development is buying politicians in Richmond, stand up and make the accusation. Back it up with reporting forms and hard data. If you want to make backhanded suggestions that this is the case (as you have in this article) then stop calling yourself a newspaper and reserve space at the grocery store checkout counters where you can compete with the other rags that sell articles on Elvis sightings and the latest news on eight-headed babies.

Don Gosney

Community co-chair,

Point Molate Restoration Advisory Board

•

THANKS

Editors, Daily Planet:

On Tuesday, June 8, I was at Cesar Chavez Park with my 5-year-old year old grandson at about 7 p.m. when I had a low blood sugar reaction because of my diabetes and became disoriented. Fortunately there was someone in the area who asked my grandson if I was all right and then called 911 to get me help. Because I was disoriented I do not remember much of the incident, and I have no idea of who called 911 for me. By the time help came I had become stable, and whoever called 911 had left. I would like to express my thanks to whoever helped me.

Eugene Turitz

•

ON REAGAN’S LEGACY

Editors, Daily Planet:

While many who would deify Ronald Reagan praise his being “tough” against communism and terrorism, I am thinking about the 241 Marines who were killed when their barracks were bombed in 1983. President Reagan’s tou gh response was to abandon Lebanon. It is only now that we know this was a seminal event in Osama bin Laden’s career; it was the moment he saw the United States as a paper tiger. The larger-than-life image of a president who secretly sold missiles to terr orists in exchange for hostages and who used the money to conduct a war prohibited by our United States Congress deserves adulation for just one thing: the stagecraft of a Hollywood icon.

Bruce Joffe

Piedmont

•

UC HATE DEBATE

Editors, Daily Planet:

I wo uld like to thank Jakob Schiller and the Daily Planet staff for running his article “UC Hate Debate as Complex as Mideast Conflict” (Daily Planet, June 8-10) As a former member of Students for Justice in Palestine when I attended UC Berkeley, I was alarme d at the sloppy and inflammatory reporting done by the East Bay Express, and its baseless claims of anti-Semitism in SJP and pro-Palestine solidarity organizations. I was especially appalled to note the conflation of anti-Semitism and pro-Palestine activi sm, especially when real anti-Semitism is on the rise among white supremacist groups in European countries. Baseless claims such as the ones states as fact by Micki Weinberg set de-legitimate true acts of racism and discrimination, at the same time as the y quash thoughtful dissent against Israel’s many, many violations of International human rights. Thank you, Jakob, for setting the record straight.

Meera Vaidyanathan

member, Stop US Tax-funded Aid to Israel Now!

•

JEWISH LIFE AT CAL

Editors, Daily Plan et:

In case there are any doubts raised by your article (“UC Hate Debate as Complex as Mideast Conflict”), prospective students and parents should know that Jewish life at Cal flourishes and that Cal is a welcoming place for Jews of all political and religious orientations.

However I must take issue with the central assertion of those identified by the article as “pro-Palestinian.” The claim that they are working to combat anti-Semitism could be no more false than an assertion that Ward Connerly favors affirmative action. There has been no instance that any of these groups has disavowed or condemned the actions and words of their supporters who arrive at each and every event with signs and handbills that employ racist language and symbols.

In case ther e is some confusion, a good gauge for whether actions and statements rise to the level of anti-Semitism is to remove the words “Jew,” “Zionist” or “Israel” and substitute any other racial, religious or ethnic group. If you would think twice about saying i t in public then it’s probably racism. Racism in all its forms is wrong.

Gordon Gladstone

Berkeley Hillel, Israel Initiatives Coordinator

•

INSENSITIVE T-SHIRT

Editors, Daily Planet:

As a longtime Berkeley resident, I have learned to be greatly proud of what this place truly represents. I have seen and experienced the sensitivity to respect the original ancient people of this country and continent. This city was this first one to straighten out the Columbus holiday issue, among other significant and end less good deeds to protect the Native American culture.

However, I am completely taken aback by an insensitive Telegraph Avenue vendor whose permit to sell his self-made products allows him to offend the Native American spirituality, the only we continue to have.

He is currently selling a t-shirt lampooning the “Native American Spirit” cigarette brand. The logo shows a dignified Native American in full regalia smoking his Kalumet, the most ancient symbol of peace and an important part of this land’s spi rituality. The t-shirt depicts the logo with a water glass pipe smoking marijuana, instead of the sacred pipe with pure tobacco as it must be. The letters of the logo are replaced by “The Original American Stoner.”

When I first saw this desecration, my f irst reaction was to politely inform the vendor of how disrespectful his t-shirt is. He refused to understand me, then as I walked away, he shouted the four letter word at me.

Since then, I avoid walking the sidewalk where his vending table is located. I find it very difficult and painful to learn that his business is protected by a City of Berkeley vendor’s permit, which allows him to desecrate my religion.

Bernardo S. Lopez

•

WAR IN IRAQ

Editors, Daily Planet:

Shame!

Our nation has been shamed. We have been misled into a bad war, “preemptive” of imagined threats, promoted dishonestly to the American people and to the Congress and to nations once our friends. A war conducted truculently in the face of sober world skepticism, lacking planning and man power to assure a peaceful outcome, at a cost of thousands wounded and killed and of treasure still uncounted. And at the cost of precious status in the eyes of the people of the world, for many of whom we once stood “a shining city upon a hill.” Before t hem we now stand shamed, for some even an object of hate, at a cost of security lost.

Operation Gatekeeper needs stronger enforcement and the adults taken into custody need to be prosecuted for trespass, destruction of private property and any other crimes they commit. Their children should be returned to the Mexican government. I t’s their problem, not ours.

Regardless of their motives, some of which are also illegal in nature, this continuation of illegal entry into our country must not be tolerated. The illegal are breaking American laws without penalty, yet an American citize n breaking the same law is prosecuted. Why???

If illegals die in their attempt to illegally enter our country, it’s unfortunate. However, I do not believe any American citizen is forcing them to enter our country illegally. If they choose this method in stead of using the proper processes already in place, then let them be responsible for the consequences. It is not the fault of the INS. Why can’t Mr. Theisen and other bleeding hearts focus their efforts on the needy inside our country? I haven’t even ad dressed the illegal entry into our country by “terrorists.” I pray that if anyone in the U.S.A. is harmed by persons who have entered illegally, let it be Mr. Theisen or the other anarchists who agree with his doctrine.

I’d love an answer to my two quest ions.

Ron Wagner

•

MOUTHPIECE FOR LIES

Editors, Daily Planet:

Absolutely ridiculous article (“UC Lecturer’s ‘Intifada’ Comment Brings Death Threats,” Daily Planet, May 25-27). First of all, he didn’t say “political intifada.” I heard an audio recording of the event. But more importantly, he didn’t mean it in a political sense, either. It strains common sense to think that he was talking about some sort of benign political realignment by using that word, especially since he explicitly related it to the Palestinian intifada and claimed that it would be more “radical” even than the murder and terrorism going on in Israel.

I also find it rather sad that Mr. Schiller blindly accepted and parroted Bazian’s silly claim to multitudes of death threats. Death t hreats are illegal. One might think that just maybe if someone was getting deluged with serious threats of harm, he would report them to the police and they would be investigated. But of course, actually looking into such a thing to see if there was any credibility to the those claims would be too taxing for Mr. Schiller, I suppose. By the way, saying someone ought to be shot in the head, while not a particularly nice suggestion, is not a death threat. I strongly suspect that most of the claimed “threats” against Bazian were of this degree, if not much less.

This is truly the worst sort of shoddy reporting. The article failed to look at Bazian’s dissembling with any kind of critical eye. You have effectively become a mouthpiece for his lies. Congratulations.

Exhibit A: Just three weeks ago, the San Francisco Symphony presented a concert version of Beethoven’s opera Fidelio, with a narration, a running commentary that reviews called everything from “incongruous” to “demeaning.”

Exhibit B: On Friday, June 18, Kent Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony perform Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in Zellerbach Hall... to be accompanied by a “dramatic reading.”

Oops.

“No comparison,” says actor-director Joy Carlin, who will recite the text, “Kent’s idea is not to interpret Beethoven. The spoken texts should give a non-musical point of view to help heighten the experience of the Mass.” Nagano lets the concert speak for itself, but he does ask, rhetoricall y: “Are you up for this wild ride?”

Missa is a complex masterpiece, infrequently performed in comparison with the contemporaneous Ninth Symphony. Beethoven—at least for his time—wrote relatively few ecclesiastic works; his relationship to religion was u n clear. He was a nominal if not terribly observant Christian, something that could be called, anachronistically, an early Unitarian.

The work’s ambiguity is reflected in its performance history. Beethoven originally offered it as a High Mass, to be perf or med at the installation of Archduke Rudolph as Archbishop, in 1820. Far from finishing in time, Beethoven continued to work on Missa for years.

An incomplete version, under the title of Three Grand Hymns with Solo and Chorus Voice, in German, premiere d a t the 1824 concert which introduced the Ninth Symphony. The entire work, with the proper Latin text, was not performed until 1845, almost two decades after Beethoven’s death.

Historically, the high mass (missa solemnis) consisted only of singing by t he c elebrants (priests) and chanting or polyphonic singing by the choir, in contrast to the low mass (missa privata) in which everything was spoken. The spoken text to be introduced by the Berkeley Symphony between sections of this sung Mass will be, app arent ly, more “spiritual” than “religious.” Carlin says she will recite some scriptural passages, along with excerpts from ancient Greek drama.

For Carlin, this is a reunion with Nagano and the BSO. She acted as narrator for the Bartok opera Bluebeard’s Castl e and performed at the symphony’s young people’s concert in two commissioned works by Jean Pascal Beintus, The Butterfly Tree and The Animal Singers of Bremen.

“It was a great thrill for me to stand in front of an entire orchestra and speak,” Carl in says. “Kent is a fine director of drama as well as music. I know he believes that Missa is a masterpiece, and his interpretation is going to be inspired by the vitality and humanity of the piece.”

Carlin, who has been called “the first lady of Berkele y theat er,” was born in Boston, grew up in Chicago, attended Yale Drama School, and studied with Lee Strasberg in New York. An original member of Chicago’s Playwrights’ Theater, she has appeared on Broadway in From the Second City, in off-Broadway produc tions, w ith regional and summer theaters and in television and films.

Her local career began in 1964, as a lecturer and acting teacher in the Drama Department at UC Berkeley. Since 1969, she has been a leading actress, director and teacher with the Amer ican Cons ervatory Theater, where she also served as Associate Artistic Director, heading up A.C.T.’s Plays-in-Progress program. She directed many plays in the Geary Theater—including Golden Boy, Hapgood and the premiere of Jane Anderson’s Food and Shelte r. She won 18 Bay Area Critics Circle and L.A. Dramalogue Awards.

With Berkeley Rep, Carlin has acted, directed and served as Resident Director and Interim Artistic Director in the early 1980s. She has also directed and performed in several productions f or the Aur ora Theater in Berkeley’s downtown arts district. Her next project with Aurora is directing Conor McPherson’s “Dublin Carol.”

Singing with the BSO at Zellerbach on Friday at 8 p.m. will be the Oakland Symphony Chorus, under the direction of Ma gen Solomon, with soloists Shana Blake Hill, soprano; Miriam Abramowitsch, mezzo-soprano; Bruce Sledge, tenor; and bass-baritone Philip Skinner.

The concert will open with a piece by UC Berkeley’s Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) compo ser-in-resi dence, Edmund Campion, featuring Rova Saxophone Quartet’s Steve Adams.

Americans struggle each generation with the political, social, and economic issues and impacts of immigration. When these often divisive debates occur, it is worth recalling the experiences of previous eras of immigration.

A century and more ago, recent ly arrived “foreigners” searching for a place in California’s economy and society included many Irish, Germans, Scandinavians, and European Jews, as well as Italians.

The lives, experiences, and traditions of one of those groups—Italian Americans who set tled in the East Bay—are thoughtfully explored in “‘Con Le Nostre Mani’ Italian Americans at Work in the East Bay,” a photographic exhibit now at the Berkeley Public Library through June 30.

The display is on the ground floor of the Central Library on Ki ttredge Street. Enter the main entrance, turn left, and go towards the end of the building. The exhibit panels are hung on walls and columns around an area of study carrels.

Major Italian immigration to the United States got underway in the late 19th cen tury and would last through 1910. More than two million Italians left Italy, primarily the northern regions, for America. Today, about 1.5 million of their descendants live in California alone.

The exhibit is organized around panels of black and white ph otographs, most obtained from local families and Italian American social clubs, showing men and women at work in the East Bay in the first half of the 20th century. Careworn, hopeful, proud, confident, determined, these Italian Americans photographed at t heir shops, stores and other job sites look back at the exhibit visitor.

“By the early 20th century, most East Bay towns featured streets or entire neighborhoods predominately inhabited by Italian Americans. Oakland boasted one of the largest Italian Am erican populations in California,” the exhibit notes.

Many newcomers settled in the Temescal neighborhood of North Oakland which “offered sunshine and soil for fruit and vegetable gardens; elbow room and affordable housing; easy street car access; and mo st vitally, job opportunities.”

Italian immigrants often found themselves restricted by education, language barriers and prejudice to jobs, usually manual labor, that longer-established locals considered less desirable; hence the exhibit title, “With Our Hands.”

The East Bay economy in that era provided opportunity for many such jobs including those in the garment trade, window washing and janitorial services, laundry work, seasonal food canning, the burgeoning automobile service industry as well as the fading livery stable business, work in restaurants and food markets, truck farming, and construction.

Sometimes the job opportunities became quite selectively regional; the exhibit notes that, for a time, one had to be from the Genoa region to have a decent chance of getting a job in the Oakland scavenger industry.

Sometimes the discrimination encountered by Italian immigrants in employment was re-directed at other groups. One photograph of an Oakland market shows a sign reading “This market does not sell any meats purchased or handled by Chinese or Asiatics. We believe in America for Americans.” As the exhibit organizers note, “ironically, at times Italian Americans themselves were not considered white by Anglo Saxon society.”

Food was at the cente r of many Italian-American enterprises. “Delicatessens, produce shops, and retail food import shops owned by Italian Americans were (and still are) a common sight in East Bay streets.” A number of successful Italian owned bakeries were started, although t hey were often called “French-Italian” in an effort to attract non-Italian customers.

Oakland’s Rivoli Deli, G.B. Ratto & Company, and the Colombo Bakery are still familiar names. And remember Bertola’s restaurant at Telegraph and Shattuck in Oakland, Gr antata’s in West Berkeley, or Ravazza’s in Emeryville? Restaurants and other food industries gave cash poor Italian immigrants a chance to use one of the assets they had brought with them, their recipes and food traditions from home.

Some Italian immigr ants took up truck farming, supplying East Bay cities with fresh produce. They found good farmland on Bay Farm Island in Alameda and other southern Alameda County sites where subdivisions sprout today.

Before municipal garbage collection, Italian immigra nts developed private routes, collecting garbage from East Bay homes and businesses—“a horse, a wagon, a strong back, and you were in business.” Operations were consolidated by 1920 into one major scavenger company, headquartered in Temescal, whose blue p ainted vehicles—often called “blue taxis” or “honey wagons”—roamed East Bay streets.

The company followed meticulous recycling practices nearly a century ago. In addition to separation of glass and metals, food scraps were sold as hog feed, buttons were cut off old clothes and re-sold to laundries and tailors, scrap cloth and old clothes went as rags to auto repair shops and janitorial businesses, and newspapers and cardboard were recycled at local paper mills.

The construction industry also provided employment as “countless Italian American craftsmen took their Old World construction skills and applied them to the needs of their newly adopted country.” Some started out as laborers and later organized their own contracting firms.

“Providing labor for roadways was a major source of employment,” as was quarry and mason work. Skilled Italian-American artisans worked on the massive stone buildings of the UC Berkeley, campus.

Two big local quarries, the Bilger Quarry, “la Cava,” in Oakland and the Hutchin son Quarry, “la Cava di Berkeley” at the top of Schmidt Lane in what is now El Cerrito, employed large numbers of Italian immigrant men who often lived on site in boarding houses.

The Bilger Quarry is still visible from the Rockridge Long’s Drugs/Safewa y complex, so the next time you shop there, recall the hundreds of Italian American men—many from the regions of Piemonte and Liguria—who labored there in the Bilger works for two dollars a day and slowly reshaped the southern end of the aptly named Rockridge district.

“Con Le Nostre Mani” was curated in 2002 by the Italian American Heritage Committee of the East Bay, and has been shown in several Bay Area museum and library venues.

“The Corporation” Featuring interviews with Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn and many others, opens at Act I and II Theater on Center St. and runs though June 17. 464-5980.www.thecorporation.tv/usa/index.php

David Brooks takes a satirical look at middle class America in “On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com

MUSIC AND DANCE

Lee Gaines, jazz pianist, a regular performer at the Cheese Board, in honor of Lesbian and Gay Pride month. Everyone welcome. At 1:15 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. corner of MLK.

“Forbidden Christmas or The Doctor and The Patient” by Rezo Gabriadze, featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Also Thurs. and Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sun at 3 p.m. Tickets are $65 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu

Dezarie at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13 in advance, $15 at the door. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com

Black Repertory Group Theatre “Come Back Annie Gray” June 18, 19, 25, 26 and 27 at 3201 Adelin e St. Tickets are $15-$20, available from 408-615-1194 or ultimatejesse@yahoo.com, www.comebackanniegray.com

Prescott-Joseph Center, “Raisin” an adaptation of “A Raisin in the Sun” Fri. and Sat. at 7:30 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. to July 11, at the Sister Thea Bowman Memorial Theater, 920 Peralta St. West Oakland. Theater is outdoors, dress for cooler temperatures. Tickets are $5-$15. 208-5651.

“18 Mighty Moun tain Warriors,” an Asian-American comedy at 8 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Also on Sat. at 8 p.m. Tickets are available from 547-2662. www.museumca.org

FILM

“Band of Outsiders” presented by Craig Seligman at 7:30 p.m. at the Pac ific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Old Oakland Outdoor Cinema on Washington St., between 9th and 10th Sts. Music at 5 p.m., and film, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” at 8 p.m. Bring your own chairs and blankets. Sponsored by the City of Oakland and the Old Oakland Historic District. 238-4734. www.filmoakland.com

Readings on Cinema: “Band of Outsiders” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

“Forbidden Christmas or The Doctor and The Patie nt” by Rezo Gabriadze, featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Also Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sun at 3 p.m. Tickets are $65 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu

Berkeley World Music Weekend with continuous music and dance performances on Telegraph Ave. between Bancroft and Parker St., from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. www.telegraphberkeley.org

Bernard Winsemius, from Holland, will perform on the baroque organ, at 4 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. A reception will follow. Donations will be gratefully received. 845-6830.

We don’t get many mule deer in my current neighborhood. But some years back, when I lived in a rickety in-law apartment near the Berkeley Rose Garden, they—along with the raccoons, skunks, and possums—were regulars. They would bed down in the ivy-covered gully below the house, or placidly consume the few things we had managed to grow in the garden (a challenge at best, since it had the kind of drainage you would expect from a former fishpond.) Mostly they were does, sometimes with fawns in tow. Bucks wer e rarer—more circumspect around people, maybe—but a few showed up from time to time. I would admire their racks from a discreet distance, and wonder about the whole antler thing.

If I were a stickler, I’d call them black-tailed deer—the semi-official mon iker for Odocoileus hemionus columbianus, the Pacific coast subspecies of the mule deer. But I’ve seldom heard that term used around here. Mulies from the Sierra and the Rockies have black-tipped tails and large white rump patches, whereas our coastal rac e has a smaller white patch and an all-black tail. Blacktails also tend to be darker and grayer than interior populations. But they share with all other mule deer the habit of stotting—bounding stiff-legged, with all four feet touching down at once—when alarmed, and the way the antlers branch.

When you think about it, antlers are among nature’s most extravagant inventions. They started small; the most primitive deer species have modest spikes. But millions of years of evolution have elaborated them into the dichotomous-branching racks of the mule deer, the sweeping tines of the elk, the massive palmate structures of the moose. The extinct Irish elk, not an elk at all but an oversized fallow deer, had to schlep around antlers with a 12-foot span and a wei ght of 90 pounds.

And the remarkable thing is that deer—mostly male deer, although both sexes of caribou are antlered—have to produce these baroque structures every year. With the exception of the oddball pronghorn, deciduous horns are unique to the dee r family. A bull buffalo or kudu or a bighorn ram wears the same set of horns for life. But a mule deer casts its antlers after the fall rut and grows a new set during the long run-up to the next mating season. Each year’s rack is larger and more impressi ve than the last, at least until old age (if the deer is that lucky) sets in.

Antler formation is a big deal. Triggered by hormonal surges, growth starts at the bony nubbins called pedicles on the skull’s frontal bone. Cells from both the pedicle and the overlying skin multiply like crazy to make cartiliginous antler tissue, which then hardens to bone. It’s not dead bone, though; antler is laced with nerves and contains pockets of living cells.

Testosterone is important in pedicle growth, but not in the making of the antler itself; other substances, such as insulin-like growth factor one, are implicated there. The process demands lots of calcium and phosphorus. Some comes from the deer’s skeleton, mostly the ribs; osteoporosis is a byproduct of peak antler growth. But the buck (or stag, or bull) can’t always satisfy the antlers’ mineral requirement by resorbing its own bones.

The need for extra minerals has led deer to some very undeerlike behavior. Although we like to put animals in neat little boxes labeled “carnivore” and “herbivore,” their actual behavior often defies those categories. Deer sometimes turn predator. On the Scottish island of Rum, red deer have been documented as eating the nestlings of a small seabird, the Manx shearwater. A Midwest ern ornithologist once caught a white-tailed deer eating a warbler that was snagged in his mist-net; others have witnessed whitetail predation on young songbirds. And I remember reading somewhere about calcium-starved deer munching on box turtles.

Why go to all this trouble, though? Charles Darwin gave some thought to that in the portion of The Descent of Man that is not actually about the descent of man, but about the evolution of secondary sexual characteristics. He acknowledged that antlers could be f ormidable weapons in combat between stags (or bucks, or bulls) for access to females. But they seemed to him to be overdesigned for that. Remember the sets of interlocked deer skulls in the Academy of Science’s recent “Skulls” exhibit, whose owners had be en unable to disengage and had presumably starved to death? Darwin, noting the risk of such fatal entanglements, commented: “The suspicion has therefore crossed my mind that [antlers] may serve partly as ornaments.”

That suspicion has found support in subsequent research. Antlers, like the lion’s mane and the peacock’s tail, are signage. They signal fighting ability to potential male rivals, and fitness—in the Darwinian sense of the ability to sire lots of healthy fawns—to potential mates. Even in macho species like deer, female choice is important. Big antlers might also signal that a buck is good at metabolizing calcium, a crucial trait to any of his female offspring who will become nursing mothers. And antlers are honest signals. Males of some animal species can make themselves look larger, stronger, more imposing than they really are. But you can’t fake antlers.

The semiotics of antlers go beyond species boundaries. Humans have been looking at them and thinking “Power” for a long time, at least sinc e that Cro-Magnon artist painted an antlered god or shaman on the wall of Les Trois Freres cave. Every September in the Staffordshire village of Abbots Bromley, costumed men wielding reindeer horns still perform a stately Morris-type dance ending in ritua l horn-to-horn combat.

The symbolic function of antlers and the high cost of growing them makes sense of the fact that aging bucks have smaller antlers. Their days of dominance are over; their change of signals may exempt them from the young bloods’ challenges while giving their old bones a respite.

Organic Produce at low prices sold at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon Streets every Tuesday from 3 to 7 p.m. This is a project of BOSS Urban Gardening Institute and Spiral Gardens. 843-1307.

“Oakland to Argentina on Vegetable Oil” Dav id, Mali, and their son Emilio tell amazing stories of their veggie oil trip adventure from Oakland to Argentina in their 1980 VW Dasher this past winter, at 7 p.m. at Biofuels Oasis, 2465 - 4th St. 665-5509.

American Red Cross Blood Services is holding a volunteer orientation from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at its office, 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Volunteers are needed to support the more than 40 blood drives held each month. Advance sign-up needed. 594-5165.

Death Penalty Vigil, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the North Berkeley BART station. Sponsored by Berkeley Friends Meetin g. 528-7784.

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org

Tuesday Tilden Walkers We are a few slowpoke seniors who walk between a mile or two each Tuesday, mee ting at 9:30 a.m. in the Little Farm parking lot. To join us, call 215-7672.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday, rain or shine, at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, we ar comfortable shoes, sunscreen and a hat. 548-9840.

Downtown Oakland Walking Tours every Wednesday and Saturday at 10 a.m to 11:30 a.m. Discover the changing skyline, landmarks and churches. For details on the different itineraries call 238-3224. www.oaklandnet.com/wallkingtours

Berkeley Gray Panthers with KPFA’s Jennifer Stone of “Cover to Cover” at 7 p.m. at 1403 Addison St. 548-9696.

Free Feldenkrais ATM Classes for adults 55 and older at 10:30 and 11:45 a.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1 414 Walnut at Rose. 848-0237.

THURSDAY, JUNE 17

“So How’d You Become an Activist?” with Hal Carlstad and Debbie Moore at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Suggested donation $5. 528-5403.

Building a Sust ainable Economy in Chiapas The Ecology Center and International Development Exchange (IDEX) is proud to host the visit of Pedro Zaragoza of DESMI, a community-based organization in Chiapas that provides technical support to over 150 indigenous cooperative s. From 7 to 9 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave, near Dwight Way. 548-2220, ext. 233.

Preparing for Your Remodeling Project A two evening class to demystify the design and construction process. Offered by Imagine General Contractors, Inc. June 17 and 24, at 6:30 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. Cost is $57-$67. To register call 524-9283.

“Defining Personal Priorities” Eric Barr will talk about his experience examining and redefining his personal priorities; and how the Simplicity Forum has helped him in the process at 7 p.m. at the Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 549-3509. www.simpleliving.net

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Yuri Slezkine, Prof. Dept. of History, UCB, on “Current Events in Russia” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $12.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020.

Out Fro nt for Kerry, a fundraiser for John Kerry sponsored by the LGBT Community from 2 to 4 p.m. at the DoubleTree Hotel at the Berkeley Marina. RSVP to 644-0172 or OutFrontforKerry@lgbt4Kerry.com

The Wall Around and Through the Holy Land East Bay residents sha re their experiences in Palestine at 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Free. 845-4740.

Great American Writing Road Trip Adventure stops at Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave. at 7:30 p.m. with mystery novelist Oakley Hall talking a bout how to get published. 845-7852. www.livetowrite.com

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Players at all levels are welcome. 652-5324.

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. www.bpf.org

Overeaters Anonymous meets every Friday at 1:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Church at Solano and The Alameda. Parking is free and is handicapped accessible. For information call Katherine, 525-52 31.

Grand Opening of the Strawbale Visitors Center at the Shorebird Park Nature Center, at noon at the Berkeley Marina, 160 University Ave. 644-8623. www.ci.berkel ey.ca.us/marina/

marinaexp/newbldging.html

Know Your Soil Workshop Understanding soil qualities and soil health will enable gardeners to grow plants that are comparable with each other and match water requirements to infiltration and drainage. Come to hea r why soils differ and how they can be managed for better health. From 10 a.m. to noon at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Free. 548-2220, ext. 233.

Marsh Restoration for Wildlife Join an exciting project to restore a tidal marsh and improve wildli fe habitat, on the south Richmond shoreline along the Bay Trail, from 9 a.m. to noon. No special skills or experience required, but a willingness to work with plants, soil, pull weeds, and an interest in bay wildlife and plants will be helpful. Tools, glo ves, and snacks provided. Pre-registration required. Sponsored by the Watershed Project (formerly Aquatic Outreach Institute). For more information, contact Martha Berthelsen 231-5783. martha@thewatershedproject.org

Dynamite History Walk at Point Pinole from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Discover the park preserved by dynamite! On this flat, easy-paced walk we’ll be joined by Norman Monk, former Atlas Powder Company employee. Call 525-2233 for information.

A Free Day of Dog Athletics featuring dogs performing flyball, disc catching and agility. Attendees are asked to leave their own dogs at home. From 2 to 4 p.m. at Oakland Animal Shelter, 1101 29th Ave. 535-5604. www.oaklandanimalservices.org

Bread Baking Learn about bacteria and grass seeds with freshly baked bread as the end result of an afternoon of discovery, measuring and kneading. We will take a short walk on the mystery of grains while our bread rises. For all ages from 1 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. Cost is $5-$6. Registration required. 525-2233.

Celebrating Fathers at the Berkeley Kids’ Room, 2472 Shattuck Ave., with Make a Bookmark at 11 a.m., Armin Brott booksigning at 1 p.m. and Margaretta Mitchell on photographing children at 2 p.m. 841-5068.

Dance Jammies, a multi-generational dance event from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Motivity Center, 2525 8th St. Cost is $9. 832-3835.

Vocal Jazz Workshop with Richard Kalman from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. followed by jam session, at the Albany Community Center. 1249 Marin Ave. 524-9283. ENDS July 17

Yoga for Seniors at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St., on Saturdays from 10 to 11 a.m. The class is taught by Rosie Linsky, who at age 72, has practiced yoga for over 40 years. Open to non-members of the club for $8 per class. For further information and to register, c all Karen Ray at 848-7800.

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552.

Juneteenth Celebration from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. along Adeline St. between Ashby and Alcatraz. 655-8008 or 654-1461.

Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m. at the Willard Community Peace Labyrinth on blacktop nex t to the gardens at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby and Stuart, enter by the dirt road on Derby. Free, wheelchair accessible. Sponsored by the East Bay Labyrinth Project. 526-7377.

“Basking in the Light” an afternoon/evening interfa ith celebration of the Summer Solstice and Father’s Day, from 3 to 9:30 p.m. at Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St. at Walnut. Cost is $10-$20 sliding scale, no-one turned away for lack of funds. www.chaplaincyinstitute.org/baskinginthelight.html

Babes in the Woods for the whole family. Dads (Moms welcome too!), bundle your baby in a backpack and join a Father’s Day walk to explore the sights, smells, and sounds of nature with your little one. From 3 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. 525-2233.

Bike Trip to Explore Historic Oakland on the third Sunday of the month through October. Tours leave the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Fallon Sts., at 10 a.m. for a leisurely 5-mile tour on flat land. Bring bike, helmet, water and snacks. Free, but reservations required. 238-3524.

“Wildflowers and Special Habitats of the Sierra Butte” a trip to Sierraville from Sun to Fri sponsored by the Regional Parks Botanical Garden, Tilden Park. Cost is $450 For details and registration call 845-4116. www.nativeplants.org

Free Sailboat Rides between 1 and 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club in the Berkeley Marina. Bring warm waterproof clothes. www.cal-sailing.org

Golden State Model Railroad Museum open from noon to 5 p.m. Also open on Saturdays and Friday evenings from 7 to 10 p.m. Located in the Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline Park at 900-A Dornan Drive in Pt. Richmond. Admission is $2-$3. 234-4884 or www.gsmrm.org

Interesting Backyards Do you have a really cool backyard project or unusual sustainable living practice that you’d like to share with others in the East B ay? Consider becoming a stop on the 5th annual Urban Sustainability Bike Tour on Saturday, July 31. Past sites have included features such as graywater systems, chicken coops, bee hives, solar installations and permaculture gardens. For information call B eck at 548-2220, ext. 233.

Summer Reading Games at the Albany Public Library, from June 14th through August 14th. For information call 526-3700.

CITY MEETINGS

City Council meets Tues., June 15, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city cler k, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycoun

A well-connected Berkeley toxics consultant and developer has teamed with Donald Rumsfeld’s predecessor as secretary of defense and a landless Native American tribe to float a proposal to build a casino and 1000-room four-hotel complex on Point Molate in Richmond.

James Levine, the Berkeley resident and driving force behind the Emeryville-based powerhouse firm of LFR Levine-Fricke, has been meeting with politicians and community and special interest groups to round up support for what could become one of California’s largest casinos.

Levine heads a consortium which last December acquired exclusive rights to develop the site from the Richmond City Council.

When contacted, Levine decline to offer specifics and asked the Daily Planet to hold off on the story in exchange for an exclusive when the final plans are unveiled in early July.

“Otherwise, all I can tell you is that we are discussing ideas with folks. We’ve been meeting with environmental groups and the community, and it’s better for everyone if we can hold off on the story,” Levine said.

“We’re doing something developers usually don’t do. We’re trying to collaborate with the community. We’re sharing confidential information with folks up front so we can receive their input and incorporate it into out plans,” he said.

The Point Molate Navy Fuel Depot, built on the site of a former winery, was marked for closure in 1995 under the Department of Defense’s Base Realignment and Closure plan and officially ended operations that Sept. 30.

Most of the property—364 acres—was transferred to the City of Richmond in 2003 for the token payment of $1, although the Navy retains about 15 percent of the property until environmental cleanup is finished.

Of the site’s 415 acres—including those that have yet to pass to the city—290 are above the mean high tide line, and 90 are fully developable.

Faced with a $7 million budget deficit this year and an expected $21 million funding gap in the upcoming year, Richmond City Councilmembers have been casting increasingly desperate eyes on the property as a source of revenue.

For centuries home to the indigenous Ohlone people, the land was later included in a Spanish land grant. Chinese shrimpers built a camp on the point in the early 1870s and fished steadily for the next four decades.

Among the most prominent features remaining on the property is the 20,000-square-foot Winehaven, a crenelated mock-Rhineland castle opened in 1908 by the California Wine Association. The winery—once California’s largest—produced five dozen varietals as well as brandy until 1920, when Prohibition forced a shutdown.

The property passed briefly to Santa Cruz Oil in early 1941, but with the approach of war, the Navy took over the site later that year, constructing massive above- and underground storage tanks for both marine fuel oil and high octane aviation fuel.

The site was criss-crossed with eight miles of fuel lines, which have been removed as part of the federal cleanup operations prior to handover to the city. The 22 massive underground fuel tanks are being cleaned up and will remain in place.

Point Molate is surrounded on three sides by land owned by Chevron, which operates the nearby refinery and has considerable input on site uses, thanks to post 9/11 security regulations designed to protect major energy facilities located on or near public waterways.

The 71-acre Village of Point Molate listed 39 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in October, 1978, including the winery and 29 housing units.

Development of the site itself is in the hands of the Local Reuse Authority—a mantle the Richmond City Council conferred on itself to become the official agency responsible for development of the property.

A 45-member Blue Ribbon Advisory Committee appointed by the Richmond City Council in 1995 developed a 20-year reuse plan for the site, which called for a mixed-used historical village centering on the winery featuring a retreat center, educational and job training facilities, light industrial uses and residential development.

City councilmembers first indicated serious interest in a casino early last year, when they commissioned a $100,000 feasibility study from the Colorado-based Innovations Group.

That study, unveiled late last July, predicted that a tribal casino would generate a yearly economic impact of a half-billion dollars, creating 4,462 more local jobs and adding $1.9 million to city sales tax revenues.

The report listed four possible sites, including Point Molate and the Stauffer Chemical site now proposed for the high rise Campus Bay waterfront residential complex (see the Daily Planet’s May 28 edition).

On Dec. 16, the city handed an exclusive six-month negotiation rights agreement to Upstream Investments, LLC, formed to develop the Point Molate site. The group includes Levine’s LFR Levine-Fricke (toxic clean up and development specialists), Legacy Partners (a real estate developer), the Odermatt Group (a Berkeley-based urban design firm headed by architect Richard A. Odermatt) and Lowe Enterprises—one of the country’s premier hotel firms.

Levine said other possible participants include the International Risk Group (underwriters), Cherokee Investment Partners (a principal in the Campus Bay development) and Shell Global Solutions (a toxic cleanup firm affiliated with the Dutch oil company).

Two other tribal casino projects are already proposed for areas near Richmond—an expansion of the San Pablo Casino and a planned casino by the Scott’s Valley Band of Pomos on the Richmond Parkway just outside the city limits.

The proposed Molate project would be grander than either project, a complete resort destination sited in a breathtaking location with first class accommodations, a convention center, and a spectacular waterfront view of the Bay.

“When we gave Upstream exclusive rights on the site, they said a tribal casino was one alternative,” said Richmond City Councilmember Tom Butt, who said earlier casino proposals had been made “for places where it would’ve been a really bad idea. If there’s going to be a casino in Richmond, Point Molate’s the right place because there are no neighbors to disturb with the lights and traffic.”

Butt said mixed-use residential proposals for the site called were torpedoed by “some very underhanded and deceitful moves by Chevron. The market’s really bad right now for commercial and light industrial.”

Butt had met with Levine several times.

“He seems to be a nice guy, very amiable, and he claims to be very well connected,” Butt said. “He claims to have very substantial ties to influential people.”

Levine is a major political contributor, primarily to Democratic candidates. He gave $27,500 to former Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante’s campaign against Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 2003 recall election. He helped fund the Gore campaign in 2000 and donated to the congressional races of both Democrat Barbara Lee and Republican Jerry Lewis.

Though he said he has no moral objections to a casino, Butt said he is worried that the promised jobs will be offset by a loss of existing jobs in the local hospitality and entertainment sectors.

“Another huge issue is what the city gets out of it,” he said, adding that negotiating a deal to build a casino on city-owned property could yield Richmond far more than a casino outside city limits. “The worst thing for the city would be something like the project on the parkway outside city limits, where Richmond would get any money at all. If something went on Molate that was high quality, it could bring a lot more to the city—although I’m totally reserving judgment ‘til there’s something on the table to look at.”

One thing that bothers the councilmember is the refusal of his colleagues to poll the community on their feelings about a casino project. “I’ve been asking them to do it for a long time, and they’ve consistently rejected it. It would be a lot easier to decide if we knew what the people wanted,” he said.

Enlisting the support of former Defense Secretary William Cohen gives the project a powerful ally in with the federal government. The Interior Department must approve the creation of a reservation on the site, and Cohen’s Pentagon contacts should help resolve any issues remaining with the Navy.

Levine said that whatever happens to the site, Upstream will be guided by a set of principles that includes protecting the existing wildlife habitat, implementing a comprehensive integrated transportation plan, and providing jobs and revenue opportunities for the citizens of Richmond.

“Though it will take a lot of hard analysis, we’re committed to all these things,” Levine said.

Ninety percent of 800 workers who voted at the Alta Bates Summit Medical center rejected a recent contract offer by the hospital late last week, locking the two sides back into heated negotiations that have been ongoing since before the workers’ contract expired at the end of May.

On Wednesday that battle escalated when the union, the Oakland-based Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 250, notified Alta Bates Summit that they filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court charging the hospital with assault, battery and false arrest of a union organizer and assault on an employee during incidents related to union organizing.

A federal mediator also stepped in after a Wednesday bargaining session did not create any progress between the two sides.

According to the union, employees rejected the most recent contract offer by the hospital because it did not acknowledge two of their primary demands. Those demands include equal employee participation in the decision process that sets hospital staffing levels and the establishment of a permanent employee training and education fund.

Alta Bates Summit defended their offer, calling it “better than that accepted at a number of local hospitals” that recently re-negotiated contracts with Local 250.

Among Alta Bates Summit’s offers were wage increases for licensed vocational nurses and tuition reimbursement for employees who want to take classes that will allow them to apply for more advanced positions in the hospital.

“You want to do everything you can to promote and recognize [the workers],” said Carolyn Kemp, spokesperson for Alta Bates Summit.

Organizers for Local 250 and workers at Alta Bates Summit said while the offer looks good on paper, it does not address several other important issues and contrary to the hospital’s claim, is inferior to contracts accepted by other hospitals. Of particular concern was the demand for equal representation during the staff ratio decision process, which union representatives said was necessary to ensure that employee’s patient loads do not get out of hand.

“The people who actually work with the patient have a good understanding of what is required to take care of patients,” said Shayne Silva, a psychiatric technician at the Alta Bates Herrick campus. “It seems to me that logically they would be included in the decision.”

Hospital spokesperson Kemp countered by saying that the current staffing level system is “working well.”

Local 250 is also contesting the offer made by the hospital concerning tuition reimbursement funds. They say the contract they recently signed with CHW is better and want Alta Bates to agree to the same. The Catholic Healthcare West contract will establish a permanent training fund into which the hospital will put $4 million, allowing for up to $3,000 for tuition reimbursement for each employment. Local 250 said CHW also agreed to give employees 16 hours paid time off each year to attend class.

Although Alta Bates Summit acknowledges the need for employees to move up, they are not taking drastic enough steps to ensure the hospital can fill empty positions, said union representatives,

According to Sal Rosselli, Local 250 president, Alta Bates Summit has a high number of traveling employees that temporarily fill their open positions. According to a SEIU study, temporary positions place financial burdens on hospitals because traveling employees are often paid more than permanent employees. Traveling employees also result in inferior care, they said, because employees don’t have the chance to form experienced teams.

For the union, the current organizing drive also reaches beyond Alta Bates Summit. Their fight, they said, is part of an ongoing battle with Sutter Health, the Northern California health care giant that runs a network of 26 hospitals, including Alta-Bates Summit.

Even though negotiations have been taking place between Alta Bates Summit and Local 250, organizers at Local 250 said they are trying to get the same standards for all health care workers under the auspicious of Sutter. Unlike the Sutter system, where hospitals negotiate their own contracts, Local 250 representatives said their recent contract with CHW covered 28 of the hospitals administered by CHW throughout the west.

Both sides disagree about where the lines are drawn concerning Sutter. Sutter maintains that they are a not-for-profit network set up to facilitate cooperation between hospitals at a time when many hospitals are struggling.

“One of the key differentiating factors between Sutter Health and other networks is their affiliates retain their decision making autonomy,” said Bill Gleesen, a spokesperson for Sutter.

Local 250 president Sal Rosselli calls Sutter’s not-for-profit classification a “shell game,” pointing to the company’s healthy profit margin and dozens of for-profit subsidiaries. According to an article in the East Bay Business times, Sutter reported earnings of $465 million and an operating profit margin of seven percent for 2003.

While Sutter operates under the auspices of a network, said Rosselli, they are viewed by the union as another large-scale health care conglomerate with an interest in making money.

“Sutter has no interest in working with their caregivers in providing patient care,” said Rosselli. “They have all interest in expanding their corporation and gaining market share so they can eliminate competition, overcharge the insured and in every predatory way go after the people who can’t pay their bills.”

Union organizers point out that when Sutter secures certain contracts, such as their former contract with the California Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS, they act as one entity.

The Berkeley Unified School District has three business days to come up with $41,000 or else it risks losing a vital sponsor for a program that teaches students the splendors of urban gardening.

After six years of receiving late or incomplete payments, AmeriCorps—the domestic equivalent of the Peace Corps—has set a June 15 deadline for the district to square its long overdue balance.

Should Berkeley Unified fail to deliver, AmeriCorps plans to withdraw its sponsorship of the Willard Middle School Greening Project, said Martin Weinstein the executive director of Bay Area Community Resources (BACR), a nonprofit that operates the program for AmeriCorps.

“We’ve had a systemic problem with Berkeley for years now,” he said. “For whatever reason they haven’t been able to meet their obligation.”

AmeriCorps provides half of the funding for two Greening Project employees at Willard and a third employee at Leconte Elementary School. At Willard, the employees work four days a week teaching a nutrition class, running a gardening club, supervising lunch, initiating beautification projects and assisting the gardener and cooking instructor to teach students to raise crops and cook the produce.

“Without them we wouldn’t have a program,” said Matt Tsang, the school’s garden teacher and a former AmeriCorps volunteer at the school. He said it would be impossible for just one person to supervise gardening classes with more than 30 students.

The 14-year-old program has an operating budget of about $100,000 and is part of a district-wide effort to teach students proper nutrition. Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School has a more elaborate program, subsidized by Alice Waters of Chez Panisse.

While school districts are notoriously bad for paying their bills on time, Berkeley has been among the worst, Weinstein said.

Previously, BACR has taken out loans to cover the district’s delinquent payments, but Weinstein said the nonprofit could no longer afford to bail out Berkeley Unified.

“We waste an enormous amount of time trying to make the system work,” he said. “Our accountants spend hours and hours of time trying to track down purchase orders that don’t get paid.”

In addition to the Greening Project, BACR acts as the fiscal agent for other Berkeley Unified programs including an after school program at Jefferson Elementary School, which Weinstein said has also been plagued by late payments. AmeriCorps also runs a program at the Berkeley High Health Center, but the city pays the district’s share of the costs.

This year, the district owed AmeriCorps $9,000 for each of the three Greening Project employees. Weinstein said he sent out invoices in September, but didn’t get his first payment until this month. After the most recent payment from the district, BACR is still owed a total of $11,000 for this year.

Weinstein said AmeriCorps planned to discontinue its sponsorship of the program unless Berkeley Unified paid its balance and made an upfront payment for its share of next year’s program, slated to cost $30,000.

District spokesperson Mark Coplan doubted Berkeley Unified would authorize advance payments and charged that BACR failed to voice their concerns to the district administration or Willard Principal Michele Patterson.

“Once they start communicating with [us] then we can solve the problem,” Coplan said.

Although he didn’t have an explanation for the history of late payments, Coplan said this year’s problems stemmed from confusion between Willard and the central administration. When BACR sent their invoices to Patterson, she assumed the district had also received copies and didn’t forward them to the district’s accounting department, Coplan explained.

Last month, a BACR representative contacted District Director of Student Services Gerald Herrick asking him to investigate the delinquent payments.

Herrick located the invoices and Wednesday BACR picked up a series of checks totaling $88,000. The money included half of the $22,000 owed for Willard, with the balance coming from the Jefferson after school program.

Before the district can pay the remainder of the money for the Willard program, the school must first write a new purchase order authorizing the payment, and then make sure that money is available in the school site’s discretionary account which funds the district’s share of the program, said Coplan.

If the program is continued, Coplan said that to avoid confusion, the district would request BACR send invoices directly to district’s business office instead of the school site.

Willard PTA member and garden volunteer Yolanda Huang, however, insists the district’s business office is culpable for the payment problems. Huang said she hand-delivered requisition requests for purchase orders to the district’s accounting department on Dec. 11, but the first check wasn’t issued until mid-March, and a second requisition form had been lost.

“This highlights a basic problem with the BUSD,” she said. “They don’t have a simple uniform accounting method.”

Adolfo Rivera of Bay Area AmeriCorps said he was holding fast to the June 15 deadline because the contracts for the volunteers expire next month and he says he can’t afford to hire replacements without a guarantee that Berkeley Unified would pay its bills.

“We’ve been continuing in good faith because we like the program, but at this point enough is enough,” Rivera said. “We can’t continue to let this thing play itself out.”

The Landmarks Commission designated three new Berkeley landmarks Monday night, but admirers of only one of the buildings (the Ace Hardware store on University Avenue) will be able to rest comfortably with that fact. The remaining two landmark sites are on UC Berkeley-owned property earmarked for possible demolition for the proposed downtown university-owned hotel, conference center and museums complex.

Meanwhile, at the beginning of Monday’s meeting, Commissioner Leslie Emmington rose as a member of the public to vent her frustration with city officials for failing to include the commission among the city panels canvassed for comment on the controversial UC Long Range Development Plan (LRDP).

“The university will develop significantly within the townscape and have significant impacts,” she said, adding that “the last time the university presented a Long Range Development Plan, we were consulted.”

Berkeley Planning Director Dan Marks agreed, saying that the plan hadn’t been sent to the commission because of “an oversight.” He then urged commissioners to send in their comments by the end of the week.

But the major news at the Landmarks Commission meeting was the three new landmarked buildings. The biggest new addition to the landmark list is the University Press Building at the northwest corner of Center and Oxford streets—a 1939 New Deal Moderne creation where the original copies of the United Nations Charter were printed in 1945 for the signatures of delegates gathered in San Francisco for the U.N.’s founding.

The other UC-owned property landmarked by the commission on Monday, incorporating storefronts stretched along 2154 to 2160 University Avenue, sits on a site the university has indicated may house a parking structure for the hotel complex.

The five-store storefront complex was built in 1911 adjacent to the terminus of the local railroad and streetcar systems, and reflects the Berkeley of the years of the first mass transit age. The building has been commercially viable throughout its history, said commissioner Robert Johnson, who drafted the proposal for landmark designation.

Tim Wang, proprietor of the highly popular Eudemonia game store at 2154 University Ave., endorsed the landmarking. “We as tenants really love this building, and our customers do too,” he said. “It’s one of the most commercially viable parts of Berkeley. It’s a shame that the university is trying to take this part of the city down.”

Manesh Sharma, proprietor of the India Palace at 2160 University, said, “We’d love to stay, and we have good business there.”

Interim Commission Chair Jill Korte tempered the enthusiasm by stating the obvious: “Because the university owns the building, they can choose to demolish it. But by designating it as a landmark, we are sending them a message.”

“Because it’s landmarked, at least they have to comply with CEQA,” said commissioner Carrie Olson. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires even the university to spell out its justification for destroying a landmarked structure.

Commissioner Becky O’Malley said the panel should consider creating a downtown historic district, which would include all the buildings of merit in the city center. O’Malley is the executive editor of the Berkeley Daily Planet.

The vote to landmark the structure was unanimous.

The other University Avenue building landmarked Monday—the Berkeley Ace Hardware Store, designed by noted Berkeley architect James Plachek—is just across the street at 2145, originally the Sills Grocery and Hardware building.

Since its construction in 1915, the building has housed only four tenants. After Sills came Appleton Grocery, which took over the property 10 years later, followed in 1940 by the first Montgomery Ward store on the West Coast. Ace took over in 1964.

The building is the last remaining stand-alone store designed by the Czech-born Plachek, whose other creations include the Berkeley Public Library, the Berkeley Civic Center building, and Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. The building was created for William J. Acheson, whose father built the city’s first hotel.

Seven commissioners voted for the landmarking, with two members abstaining—new appointee Steven Winkel (replacing Burton Edwards) and Robert Stevenson, sitting in for the absent Adam Weiss.

The most controversial proposal facing the commissioners called for radical changes to two properties included in the recently landmarked Oceanview Sisterna Historic District, created by the commission on March 1.

Developer Gary Feiner proposed to turn the two single-family cottages at 2104 and 2108 Sixth Street into duplexes. While the structure of 2108 had been landmarked, the commission included only the grounds of 2104 because the dwelling had been already been significantly altered by previous owners.

Feiner had appealed the decision on 2104, further complicating the process. Both neighbors and commissioners worried that the revisions were both too large and too similar to fit in with the unique character of a neighborhood where each Victorian displays a distinct individuality.

Neighbors came out in force to protest the proposed mitigated negative declaration on the project issued by Debra Sanderson of the city Planning Department, which would have authorized Feiner to move ahead without any further scrutiny. Neighbors objected to the size of Feiner’s proposed remodels, their impacts on adjoining properties, and what several called the city’s failure to provide adequate notice of his plans.

Feiner indicated a willingness to work with commissioners, who appointed a subcommittee to handle the project.

While Planning Director Dan Marks told commissioners Monday night that there was no opportunity to reopen the EIR process, Senior Planner Gisele Sorensen notified commissioners by e-mail Tuesday afternoon that Marks had checked with Sanderson and learned the negative declaration hadn’t yet been filed with the county.

Marks then ordered her not to sign and record the document, and directed his staff to give commissioners a chance to review the document before a final decision is made.

The proposal will return to the commission next month, with a final hearing expected at the August meeting so that neighbors Neal and Elise Blumenfeld—now in New York where Elise is undergoing medical treatment—can be present.4

Mayor Tom Bates Tuesday proposed a temporary reprieve for some community nonprofits slated for budget cuts in hopes that come November Berkeley voters will bail them out indefinitely.

The mayor’s proposal—presented two weeks before the City Council is scheduled to adopt its 2005 budget—would allocate $192,000 to partially restore funding to an array of community agencies for six months.

If voters end up passing two tax initiatives on the November ballot—an increase in the Utility Users Tax that would bolster the general fund and an increase in the tax on property sales that would be earmarked for youth service programs—the funding would be restored permanently, Bates said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the council approved a ballot measure that would make Berkeley the first city to publicly finance elections and backed a Transportation Commission proposal encouraging BART to charge parking fees at Ashby and North Berkeley BART stations.

To temporarily increase funding for the nonprofits, Bates proposed using $66,000 in unallocated community agency funds and $126,243 from a Public Utilities Commission rebate. City staff will review the proposal and return it to the council next week.

Last month, city staff proposed roughly $400,000 in cuts to community nonprofits to help the city plug a $10.3 million shortfall in its general fund.

Most of the funding restorations were given to agencies that had suffered cuts larger than the city’s target of three percent.

In addition to preserving programs, Bates’ proposal could pay political dividends for the council’s campaign in support of the November ballot tax measures. With the money still flowing to the agencies, the council and nonprofits would be able to argue that failing to pass the tax measures would kill some programs that have been temporarily spared.

Bates’ plan would also restore $88,560 for full funding of the Berkeley Drop-In Center. The program was to have lost its funding this year.

Councilmember Dona Spring offered an alternative plan that would have given more money to the Quarter Meal program to feed the homeless, provided $50,000 for more traffic circles, restored funding to the Habitot Children’s museum, and included funding for a design conference on a plan to unearth Strawberry Creek at Center Street.

Spring said the new spending would have to be paid for by unspecified cuts elsewhere in the budget.

One other key ingredient to balancing the budget remains unresolved. After a closed door meeting with city unions for the third consecutive week, the city has still not won agreement on its demand that the unions defer three percent of their salary increases until next year. The move would save the city about $1.2 million and if the unions don’t agree, the City Council has threatened to close city hall one day a month to recover the savings.

With little debate, the council referred to the city manager a recommendation from the Citizens Budget Commission that the city take a far stronger position in negotiating with city unions. The commission recommended that the city require its workers to pay their share of contributions to the state pension system, withdraw its policy to limit layoffs, and demand that unions reopen their contracts before November.

Amid concerns raised from citizen groups and homeowners at recent public budget meetings, City Manager Phil Kamlarz announced the city would hire summer interns to study the city’s tax burden and services in comparison to other Bay Area cities.

Public Financing

By a vote of 7-2 (Olds, Hawley no) the City Council approved placing a measure on the November ballot to replace private money in campaigns with a system of public financing paid for by the city. Under the system, candidates who qualify for public financing and accept the funding would be barred from accepting any private donations or any other financial assistance.

Similar systems have been adopted for statewide races in Arizona and Maine.

The council had been tinkering with the initiative for weeks under pressure from the Berkeley Fair Election Coalition, which threatened to put a similar proposal on the ballot.

The measure—if passed by 50 percent of the electorate—would require the city to put aside $498,000 annually from the general fund to finance elections for mayor, council, city auditor and school board director. Elgible candidates would receive $160,000 for mayor and $20,000 for the City Council.

The council can delay implementation of the program until the city’s budget outlook improves and can, by a two-thirds vote, suspend or reduce the funding in times of fiscal emergency.

Transportation Commission Recommendations

Parking fees could soon be coming to BART parking lots in Berkeley. Moments before the council unanimously approved a resolution from the city’s transportation commission urging BART to charge parking fees, BART’s new Director of Planning Kathleen Kelly told the council that the transit agency was set to review its parking policy and give recommendations this summer.

BART parking was the one issue on which the council and Transportation Commission agreed Tuesday. The council turned aside a commission recommendation that it receive all transportation-related items.

Mayor Bates said the proposal amounted to a “carte blanche” and that “the red tape would be ridiculous.”

Transportation Commission Chair Dean Metzger insisted that the commission didn’t want to circumvent other city commissions, but only assume its role as the initial public body to study transportation-related policies.

The council voted to send the item back to the commission to work with Councilmember Worthington on a more clearly worded proposal.

The Planning Commission decided Wednesday it wasn’t ready to rezone University Avenue after all.

Scheduled to vote on zoning guidelines that promised to moderately scale down the size of new buildings and anger just about everybody involved, the commission instead opted to set a new deadline and take a different tack.

With commissioners still in disagreement and residents still breathing fire, the commission voted unanimously Wednesday to establish a four-member subcommittee to recommend a new zoning overlay, set for commission consideration July 14.

At its last meeting, a majority of the commission scoffed at delegating the matter to a subcommittee, but in the ensuing two weeks, most recognized that any recommendation to the City Council passed Wednesday would come from a divided commission and face stiff opposition from neighbors and developers.

“We weren’t ready to vote,” said Commission Chair Harry Pollack, one of several commissioners to change course and embrace the subcommittee proposal. “At this point it seems like an appropriate way to come up with a recommendation the Planning Commission can support as a whole.”

Pollack will sit on the subcommittee along with commissioners David Stoloff, Susan Wengraf, and Gene Poschman. After three months of regimented public hearings, where residents are allowed just three minutes apiece to speak, the commission hopes the subcommittee will allow stakeholders a chance to work through unresolved issues.

Missing the June 9 deadline, however, means the new set of zoning rules won’t be ready for City Council approval until after its summer recess.

Following years of complaints from residents that the current rules allow for bigger and bulkier buildings than called for in a 1996 strategic plan, both the council and the Mayor’s Task Force on Permitting and Development urged the commission to consider new zoning rules for the University Avenue area. The new zoning rules were supposed to be fast-tracked in order to prevent new developments from slipping in under the current guidelines.

Four projects already submitted will be immune to new zoning restrictions. However, Planning Director Dan Marks said no development team is presently approaching the city with a new proposal for University Avenue.

To address neighborhood concerns that new buildings would be too massive and not transition well to surrounding residential districts, the planning staff Wednesday proposed new setback requirements.

In the front, buildings would be required to provide an average two-foot setback, while on the sides, setbacks would be zero for first and second floor commercial space and five feet on residential floors above so tenants receive more light and fresh air. For corner buildings, the setback would be two feet on University Avenue and eight feet at the adjacent residentially zoned parcel to ease the transition to smaller private homes.

Building heights would remain three stories along the avenue and four stories at specifically targeted intersections. However, residents fear that developers will continue to use a state law that lets them build 25 percent more housing space for projects that include affordable housing, as all large Berkeley developments must.

The bonus, residents have argued, leads to intrusive buildings that tower over neighboring houses and lack sufficient space for viable ground floor shops or commercial parking.

Planning commissioners hinted Wednesday that parking and commercial viability issues were emerging as a top priority. In another about-face, a majority of commissioners—two weeks after asking staff to consider boosting incentives offered to developers for a wide variety of improvements—expressed a preference for limiting any incentives to building designs that promoted parking and commercial viability.

“After two months of ignoring commercial issues, it’s coming down to stores and parking,” said Richard Graham a neighbor, and member of Plan Berkeley, a civic group that has participated in the zoning process.

Wednesday’s twist of events left Graham and other residents hopeful the commission could pass a new zoning regulation the neighbors could accept.

“It’s taken us a long time to get down here, but we’re happy to be where we are,” said Kristin Leimkuhler, also of Plan Berkeley.

The University Avenue rezoning subcommittee is scheduled to meet at 4:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday of next week (June 14 and 15) at the Permit Center.

In some towns high school graduates are greeted with a new car or a family barbecue. This year in Berkeley the class of 2004 will stare out on a small army of voter registration volunteers.

One week after the League of Women voters held a voter registration drive on campus, Friday’s graduation ceremony will include a visit from UC Berkeley’s Mobilizing America’s Youth seeking to register graduates, who—thanks to the work of a devoted team of parents—will find enclosed with their diplomas a voter registration card. Berkeley High students almost missed out on the registration cards, however, due to a foul-up by someone associated with the school.

Across the state, schools are failing to distribute registration cards as required by the Student Voter Registration Act of 2003, said Nicky Yuen, a Berkeley resident and executive director of Get Out the Student Vote. The act requires the secretary of state to mail registration cards—about 350,000 in total—to every high school, community college and public university in the state.

The problem, said Yuen, is that the schools weren’t informed that the registration cards were on the way. That was the case at De Anza Community College in Cupertino, where Yuen teaches government. He received a call from a school employee asking him if he wanted the cards before they recycled them.

“Most schools didn’t know anything about it and their boxes just disappeared,” he said.

Yuen and his group didn’t blame overburdened school administrators for the snafu, but they weren’t going to be denied the chance to offer 18-year-olds a visit to the ballot box. After one member of the group found the missing box at El Cerrito High School, Yuen traveled to Berkeley High Wednesday and scoured the storage and mail rooms in search the cards.

No luck, but not to worry. Arlene Blum, a Berkeley resident and member of Yuen’s group immediately ordered a new batch from the state. The United Parcel Service was scheduled to deliver the package Friday just hours before the graduation ceremony, but the package arrived Thursday giving parents ample time to stuff them into diploma sleeves.

“It’s so much work to register voters. Here there are hundreds of thousands of students not registered, it seemed like a great opportunity,” Blum said.

Ensuring that voter registration cards will accompany every Berkeley students’ diploma is just the start of Get Out the Student Vote’s work this summer, one of the busiest on record for local voter advocacy groups.

Yuen’s group will team do non-partisan voter education and mobilization as part of a larger coalition with East Bay Votes, an umbrella group of local voter rights organizations.

Mobilizing America’s Youth (MAY) decided to set up shop at the commencement when they learned Berkeley High had lost their registration cards, said MAY member and UC Berkeley Senior Marlee Furman. Even though the graduates will now get registration cards with their diplomas, MAY still plans to have a table at the commencement to promote the group’s march for health care June 19 in San Francisco.

The San Francisco event will kick off MAY’s cross country ten-day RV trip, where college activists will attend 15 demonstrations. Furman said the goal of the whirlwind tour was to show young people across the country that politics can be fun and that it really matters.

In Berkeley, this weekend the NAACP is holding its Medgar Evers Voter Advocacy Summit. The event, honoring the slain civil rights advocate, instructs participants in grass roots political organizing.

On Sunday participants and members of the public will meet in San Pablo Park to canvas neighborhoods in South and West Berkeley to register voters.

Scientists at the Oakland Children’s Hospital Research Institute discovered to their chagrin Monday that their lab mice were dying after they’d been injected with the supposedly dead anthrax bacteria obtained from a Maryland firm.

Further tests proved Wednesday that the material was, indeed, a live and deadly culture.

FBI bioterrorism picked up the remaining culture later Friday.

Because the material was in liquid form, Children’s Hospital spokesperson Bev Mikalonis said employees should be in no danger. Nonetheless, some lab workers are taking precautionary doses of antibiotics, she said.

The lab, at 6700 Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Oakland, is more than a mile from the hospital itself.

The Centers for Disease Control is now investigating how Southern research Institute in Frederick, Md., managed to send out a live culture, Mikalonis said.

Man Charged With Lawrence Livermore Thefts

A 59-year-old Berkeley man was arraigned in federal court in Oakland Wednesday on two charges of theft of government property from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,

One count charges former lab employee Medhi Balooch with stealing $26,600 in unauthorized salary payments, and the second with claiming $23,000 in fraudulent travel expenses, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew J. Jacobs.

Following the arraignment before federal Magistrate Wayne D. Brazil, Balooch was ordered to appear before U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken at 2 p.m. Tuesday afternoon.

The arrest followed an investigation by agents from the FBI and the Department of Energy’s Office of the Inspector General.

The maximum sentence on each count is a 10-year prison sentence and a fine of $250,000.

After Berkeley police responded to a shooting reported at Russell and Sacramento streets at 10:30 Wednesday night, some officers canvassed the area in search of shooters.

After officers attempted to stop a gold Oldsmobile a short distance away, the driver hit the gas and led police on a northbound chase into Richmond, where a patrol car from that department joined in the pursuit.

Officers briefly lost the Olds after the driver doused his lights, but the chase resumed after a Berkeley officer spotted the car on Mathieu Court.

The fugitive was headed eastbound on Ripley Avenue when another Richmond officer attempting to serve a papers on a local resident pulled in the Olds path.

The ensuing crash totaled both cars, and the driver of the Oldsmobile fled on foot, leaving a slightly injured police officer in the wreck of his cruiser.

McGee was charged with a variety of felony counts, including evasion of police, escape, battery on a peace officer, and a probation violation. Officers also discovered that he was wanted on an outstanding warrant for felony hit and run.

The suspect was hauled backed to Berkeley and given a cell in the city lockup. No weapon was found in his car or on his person, and police are still investigating to see if there is any connection between McGee and the Berkeley shooting—which resulted in non-life-threatening injuries to the victim, said Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies.

Brazen Thief Boosts Three Minibikes

A brazen daylight thief grabbed three Mini Ninja motorbikes from the Ramada Inn at 920 University Ave. late Tuesday afternoon. The miniature cycles, capable of speeds up to 40 miles an hour, are less than half the size of a regular cycle—but still very dear to their owner, who promptly called police.

Foolish Response Thwarts Armed Bandit

When a pistol-packing bandit approached a man at Cedar-Rose Park in Berkeley about 8:15 p.m. Tuesday, the would-be victim did precisely what police advise victims never to do. He just said no, refusing to fork over his wallet.

As the bandit and his would-be victim argued, other park-goers wandered over and the frustrated felon fled.

Pair Stages Office Depot Heist

Unlike the gent at Cedar-Rose, a clerk at Berkeley’s 1025 Gilman St. Office Depot wisely forked over the gelt when confronted by a pair of armed robbers less than 20 minutes later. ›

Shortly after two Latino students were shot and wounded in a terrifying, daylight drive-by shooting at Oakland’s Castlemont High School, the Oakland Tribune interviewed Oakland City Councilmember Larry Reid, who had hurried to the scene.

“It’s just depressing,” Mr. Reid was quoted as saying. “I don’t know what we can do to get through to these kids. I’m tired of seeing African Americans and Latinos dying on the streets. They have no sense of value for human life. There’s too much violence and too many guns on the streets. I’m not sure what we can do about that. I don’t have an answer.”

Mr. Reid is the longtime City Councilmember from the 7th District, the most violent district in Oakland. He is also the chairperson of the Oakland City Council’s Public Safety Committee, the committee that is charged with overseeing the safety of Oakland citizens. He confesses that he does not have an answer to the most pressing public safety problem in the city.

Let us return to that thought, in a moment.

The lunchtime Castlemont shooting, in full view of many students, and leaving a bullet hole in one of the school’s office windows, suddenly puts the issue of violence in Oakland back in the public eye. And that is one of the problems.

Except for those people who live in the most violent neighborhoods, our perception of how dangerous things are in the city often has little to do with the actual facts. If you’ve witnessed some violent incident, or if some particularly disturbing incident hits the news (such as the Castlemont shootings), then the belief tends to be that violence is going up. Let a little while pass with no newspaper or television highlight of some particularly horrific event, and people tend to think about other things.

The only area where folks tend to pay attention to actual statistics is in homicides, but even here, we often look at it more like a sports event than something with devastating effects upon human beings. When homicides in Oakland rose above 100 in 2002, the public began to get seriously concerned. Throughout 2003, there was much talk in the city of whether the murder rate would once again top “triple digits,” and the news media noted each murder not only with its running total for the year, but also favoring us with a comparison to the statistics from that day of a year before. We are running slightly ahead of last year’s totals, we were told. Or slightly behind. “Last year, 114 people were homicide victims in Oakland, one more than in 2002 and the fourth consecutive year that saw an increase,” the Tribune informed us in a February, 2004 roundup. The paper added that 17 people had been killed in Oakland to that date. “If this year’s rate keeps pace,” the Tribune continued, as if it were describing Barry Bond’s home run rate, “it will be five straight years [of homicide increases].”

But the pace did not keep up. The rate of Oakland homicides began to slow in late February, so that by the end of May, “only” 14 more people had been killed. Fourteen homicides in three months in a single mid-sized city seems like a ghastly fact. In Oakland, it meant that murders would “probably” drop under triple-digits for the year. No one seems to know why this is happening, but the general feeling around some parts of town is that it’s nice that things seem to be getting “better.”

And looking at Oakland’s violent crime statistics posted by the police department on the city’s website, one might come to the same rosy conclusion. Taking the city’s five most violent council districts (districts 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7), and counting up the eight most violent crimes (assault with a non-firearm deadly weapon, assault with a firearm, shooting into an occupied home or car, battery with serious bodily injury, battery on a spouse, battery on a child, rape, and murder), then Oakland’s crime dropped approximately 10 percent between March-May 2003 and March-May 2004. Murders were down some 62 percent in that period. Serious beat-downs were down almost 50 percent. Shootings were down 25 percent. In fact, almost every violent crime statistic in Oakland was down from the spring of 2003 to the spring of 2004.

Almost.

In the spring of 2003, in the five most violent districts in Oakland, there were 101 incidents of what is antiseptically called “inflict injury upon child” — child beatings so serious that the police had to be called in, and a criminal report written. In the spring of 2004, there were 101 child beatings in those five districts. Exactly the same.

The children of violence, we know, almost always turn to violence themselves.

When violent outbreaks disrupted the tail-end of last spring’s Carijama Festival at Mosswood Park in North-West Oakland, it was almost universally agreed by city officials and festival participants that the problems centered around young people who came late and were not part of the festival itself. “These are people who came looking for something to do, and they did not want to leave,” the San Francisco Chronicle quoted festival organizer Jackie Artman as saying. “The people who caused the trouble had almost nothing to do with Carijama.” It was the second year in a row that violence had come at the end of the otherwise peaceful festival.

In answering the complaint of many young Oaklanders that there is nothing for them to do in this city, Oakland Police Lt. Kozicki replied, “This is what they want to do. They want to raise hell and a lot of people want to watch them raise hell.” He added, “Until we figure out a way to keep troublemakers away, the scope of these venues needs to be severely restricted. “

This year, in its restricting mode, the Oakland Police Department forced Carijama to move its activities to the Frank Ogawa Plaza, on the theory that police could better control any problems in that controlled environment. Instead, violence broke out at the end of the 2004 festival almost identically to what happened in 2003. “We thought a change of venue would deter the rowdies,” Chief Richard Word said shortly afterwards, “but apparently, you can’t deter these people.”

Perhaps we should be figuring out a way to include, rather than deter.

Everyone has heard about the human rights violations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But how many are aware of even deadlier human rights violations on our southern border? What is happening along our border with Mexico is policy directed from the highest levels of government and blame cannot be shifted to low-level soldiers. Victims have included babies and young children, not terrorists. Those killed have been seeking jobs or family reunification.

In the apparent hope of deterring border crossings by migrants, Operation Gatekeeper was initiated by the INS in October 1994 to force people from the traditional suburban migration routes in the San Diego area to more inhospitable areas. A wall was constructed beginning at the ocean and stretching 14 miles inland. The number of border patrol agents was increased and military assistance and resources were given to INS. Three similar strategies were initiated by INS with Operation Hold the Line in 1993 in the El Paso, Texas area; Operation Safeguard in 1995 in Arizona and Operation Rio Grande in 1997 in the Brownsville, Texas vicinity.

As a result of Operation Gatekeeper, the entire northern border of Tijuana became a wall and undocumented workers and their families were forced to try to cross the border by going through the Imperial Desert or to cross over the Otay and Tecate mountains. People have not been deterred from attempting to cross, but they have been forced to risk their lives in the crossing attempt. In one month during the 1996-1997 winter 16 migrants froze to death in the mountains. This is not an aberration.

Global Exchange documented the deaths of more than 1,500 people trying to cross the Mexico-U.S. border between 1994 and 1999. Since many die in remote areas, the bodies of all are not found and the actual numbers may be far greater. Causes of death include: drowning (in the canals, ditches and the Rio Grande), dehydration, heat stroke, hypothermia, traffic accidents and the occasional bullet. The American Friends Service Committee presently estimates that an average of one immigrant a day dies along the border.

Since 9/11 additional money has been allocated to the southwest border which now has walls, fences, canals, ditches, ground and air sensors, a vast amount of high tech lighting, mobile and fixed infra-red night scope cameras and more vehicles, aircraft and armed personnel patrolling the border than at any previous time.

The INS is fully cognizant of the dangerous terrain that it is forcing migrants to cross. In one INS document describing the San Diego sector, it states, “The eastern 52 miles of the Sector...is marked by steep mountains, deep canyons, thick brush, and the absence of urban infrastructure and transportation facilities. The steep mountainsides, canyon walls, large boulders, and dense vegetation make travel slow, difficult, and dangerous, and lack of food, water, and transportation compounds the challenges faced by travelers. The eastern portion of the Sector also experiences extreme temperatures, ranging from freezing cold in the winter to searing heat in the summer that can kill the unprepared traveler.”

In 1999, a petition was filed with the Organization of American States (OAS) by the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation (CRLAF) and the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties (ACLU). It asserted that the U.S. violated human rights with its implementation of Operation Gatekeeper. It charged that, “...the United States has organized and implemented its immigration and border control policies in a way that has knowingly and ineluctably led to the deaths of an ever increasing number of immigrants seeking to enter the U.S. to obtain jobs or family reunification. Operation Gatekeeper has steered this flow of immigrants into the harshest, most unforgiving and most dangerous terrain on the California-Mexico border.”

In November of 1999, Mary Robinson, the then United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, visited the Tijuana/U.S. border. She criticized Gatekeeper when she stated that, “I saw the sense of deflecting people at risk to their lives when they decide to immigrate. I do intend to take this issue up with the authorities of the United States.” But no changes have occurred as a result of appealing to the United Nations or OAS.

And the dangers at the border are not limited to the environmental elements. There is also a problem with the human element, particularly the Border Patrol agents.

A 1993 Los Angeles Times investigation of the Border Patrol found that it had hired agents with “dubious pasts, including criminal records and checkered careers with police agencies and the military....During the 1990s agents were prosecuted or disciplined for numerous offenses including unjustified shootings, sexual misconduct, beatings, stealing money from prisoners, drug trafficking, embezzlement, perjury and indecent exposure.”

Between 1992 and 1997, Human Rights Watch published five highly critical reports about human rights abuses along the border. These reports included “dozens of instances of people shot and killed or injured by the Border patrol; violations of INS firearms policies on use of lethal force, sexual assaults, beatings and other ill-treatment of detainees; a code of silence by which officers refused to testify against colleagues accused of wrongdoing; and virtual impunity for agents, regardless of their actions.” Is the failure to control its own personnel another part of the strategy of deterrence?

The reason behind Operation Gatekeeper and similar operations was deterrence. It was believed by U.S. government officials that by making the border crossings more difficult, migrants would choose not to make the crossing. But the General Accounting Office has released three reports that call this deterrence rationale into question. As in its two previous reports, its 2001 report concludes, “The extent to which the new strategy has affected overall illegal entry...remains unclear.”

Operation Gatekeeper has apparently moved migrant crossings from California to Arizona and other areas. Should we continue to sacrifice a life a day on a strategy that is “unclear” in its results or that may just shift the location for the border crossing? Is this the policy of a nation that purports to uphold human rights?

Kenneth J. Theisen is the communications director at Bay Area Legal Aid. He writes on public-interest law issues.

It’s never nice to open up a newspaper and read a spiteful piece by an angry critic. But as a published author and photographer for nearly 30 years, I’ve had my share of bad reviews. So Bob Brokl’s commentary piece (”Nexus Artist Blasts Animal Shelter Decision,” Daily Planet, June 4-7) wasn’t a new experience for me, but it has left an especially nasty taste, as the critic is someone I had considered an ally, with common goals.

From the title onwards, Bob’s commentary paints an absolutely false picture of the progressive steps taken to develop a true community-serving animal shelter for the residents of Berkeley. Brokl’s use of artistic license produces a strategically divisive account of the collaborative efforts to develop a model animal shelter. There has been no “decision” regarding the animal shelter for Brokl to blast and so the entirety of his diatribe is based purely on fear.

Though it is tempting to respond point by point to his misinformation, I do not believe the pages of a local newspaper are the appropriate forum. Suffice it to say that while Bob casts my pursuit of an optimal site for our new animal shelter in a negative light, I am proud of seeking excellence instead of settling for mediocrity. An animal shelter is a vibrant element of civic life. Even if the animals don’t appreciate the efforts or the aesthetics, the people who use the shelter certainly do. It makes a statement when you put a public agency by the railroad tracks; it reflects a government’s priorities when you put a public facility in a place where it is unsafe to walk after dark.

The Berkeley East Bay Humane Society has moved slowly towards working jointly with the City of Berkeley Animal Shelter on a shared facility and functions. Recently, with new leadership, this has changed and now we have an amazing opportunity to deliver better public service to the taxpayers of Berkeley, who spend almost $1.2 million a year on animal care services.

Our first discussions with the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society took place in the full glare of an Animal Shelter Sub-committee public meeting. Nexus was invited to the meeting. Not belatedly, but exactly on time. At this meeting a motion was made and agreed to that supports the formation of a working group—to determine the feasibility and desirability of establishing a joint facility and operating agreement. No decision was made as to the location or design and won’t be until this working group has begun meeting and develops a shared vision.

As is the case of any egalitarian process, arguments will be put forth, different “visions” shared, problem solving and compromise will be necessary. Brokl must recognize that complex issues require complex solutions and that, difficult as they are, discussions need to take place that might include proposed compromise on all sides.

The private discussions between Nexus and their landlord, the Berkeley Humane Society are their business, not mine. As an artist myself, I hope a plan will be developed that meets all of our needs, bringing the community closer rather than pushing us further apart.

I am not now and never have been a representative of the city. I am an activist, from head to toe, and proud of it. There are some in city government who wish—as Bob seems to—that I would just go away.

Sorry, can’t do it—my vision of a model animal shelter is a beautiful thing, and I won’t quit pursuing the best site and the best design just because it doesn’t seem convenient to some. Berkeley residents deserve nothing less and those of us leading this effort—City Councilmembers, the Humane Society, city staff, and animal welfare activists—intend to deliver just that.

Jill Posener is a community artist and chair of the Animal Shelter Sub-commitee.

What great timing. The very day after a friend and I were stumped trying to name these flowery showstoppers your Ron Sullivan comes to the rescue (“A Paperbark Writer Talks of Trees that go ‘Oof!’, Daily Planet, May 25-27). They are melaleuca trees.

This is the second time she has pulled a name out of the hat—the last time was her column on Red horsechestnuts that I had encountered near the Monterey Market.

I look forward to more of her serendipitous columns in the future. For now, a big thanks from this grateful reader.

Tim Aaronson

El Cerrito

•

BABBITT

Editors, Daily Planet:

Where, for goodness sake, did you find your Police Blotter writer? His yuk-yuk, har-har style is an embarrassment to your paper. The guy writes as if he’s just sprung, full-blown, from the pages of a Sinclair Lewis novel, probably Babbitt. My god, get this person a stand-up gig at the local Rotarians or Elks Club. He’d be a sensation there. He doesn’t belong with the Planet. Next thing you know, we’ll be getting weekly excerpts from the “humor” columns of Reader’s Digest!

Peter Hubbard

•

THE GADFLY

Editors, Daily Planet:

In response to Charles Smith and his admiring portrayal of Ralph Nader as a necessary gadfly (Letters, Daily Planet, June 8-10): Dear Charles, given that we already have a rat in the White House, why oh why should we consider a fly? Have you considered that by dividing the progressive vote, Saint Ralph right now, is doing absolutely everything he can to ensure the election of the one man (Bush) who will do in turn absolutely everything he can to ensure that absolutely everything Ralph Nader believes in will never happen. Got it?

Mike Steinberg

•

ROSA PARKS

Editors, Daily Planet:

It was interesting to note last week that Mr. Donaldson chides you and others for being poorly informed and self-appointed and then proceeds himself in that manner (Letters, Daily Planet, June 1-3). I think the situation at Rosa Parks School calls for more information and accountability.

I have been “informed” that almost half the teaching staff is leaving and that number is divided between those asked by Superintendent Lawrence to transfer and those leaving on their own accord. Two teachers did not return from spring break. Mr. Donaldson says he was informed that “observations of both the principal, the superintendent and other educational experts who observed, over a period of many months, the teaching in individual classrooms” lead to recommended changes and teachers unwilling to change were asked to leave. My sources tell me the observations are questionable and that the only plan was that Ms. Herrera would remain as principal.

Ms. Lawrence continues to stick with this despite the fact that almost all classroom teachers asked that a new principal be appointed. She has also not addressed issues raised by Concerned Citizens of Rosa Parks School which include unreliable leadership, inequitable treatment of students and staff, and lack of knowledge and support for some policies, programs and families. Ms. Herrera’s lack of experience as a principal has also been cited as an issue not addressed.

I do agree with Mr. Donaldson that this important Berkeley public school must get beyond the gossip and criticism. Transferring experienced and well-respected teachers under the present circumstances only increases gossip and criticism. Scapegoating the teachers is not the answer. I urge Superintendent Lawrence to speak publicly and informatively on these issues.

Nora Wellstone

•

REAGAN LEGACY

Editors, Daily Planet:

Regarding your June 8 “Hot Air” editorial on Reagan: Reagan presided over the most murderous period ever of U.S. actions in Central America, when hundreds of thousands of peasants, labor leaders, nuns and other grass roots activists were tortured, raped, and brutally murdered. People in El Salvador and Guatemala remember him as the butcher of their region. His administration harbored the Iran-Contra scandal which armed Iran and killed tens of thousands of Nicaraguans and destroyed its popular democracy. He initiated a new U.S. arms buildup, attacked tiny Grenada and watched its president, Maurice Bishop, killed. Reagan’s CIA helped set the stage in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the current disaster in the Middle East. Because of his ignorance or senility, the practice of deniability became acceptable policy, preventing the accountability of the presidency.

On the home front Reagan started the massive redistribution of wealth upwards, which removed funds though taxes and legislation from the public sphere, laying the groundwork for the impoverishment of our schools, hospitals and other public institutions. As governor of California, he closed the mental institutions and put thousands of mentally ill onto the streets. I credit him with making it feel OK to pursue personal wealth at the expense of social and community needs.

As president he watched thousands die of AIDS and did nothing, actually worse than nothing because he blamed the victims.

I could never stand to listen to the meaningless blather from his lips, and it’s a mystery to me how others can view him as a slightly flawed but harmless and genial old man. I did not expect such treatment of Reagan by you. Readers need real information on history, not personality and blanks.

Karen Klitz

•

UC LONG RANGE PLAN

Editors, Daily Planet:

I am writing to express my opposition to the 100-unit high-density housing development proposed in the University of California’s 2020 Long Range Development Plan. The contiguous area is zoned for low-density single-family housing, and for good reason: It is one of the most high-risk fire zones in the United States. It is essential that we maintain adequate egress from our neighborhood, as well as access for emergency vehicles. The addition of 100 high-density housing units, along with the automobile gridlock they will create is simply not acceptable.

It is also crucial that we stop further destruction of the upper Strawberry Creek Watershed. Impermeable surfaces, such as buildings and parking lots, increase run-off and detrimentally impact the city’s aging infrastructure. Sections of the proposed development site sit on an aquifer that, in times of emergency, such as a break on the EBMUD water line at the Caldecott Tunnel, could provide potable water for the entire city of Berkeley. Additionally, there are three fault lines that circumscribe the area — hardly a logical place for new housing.

The City of Berkeley is experiencing an historical residential vacancy rate as well as a boom in construction of condominiums and townhouses, all of which are within walking distance to campus. It makes much more sense to utilize available housing within the stated objectives of the LRDP (“within one mile from campus”) than to begin an environmentally unsound, costly and potentially dangerous project.

Andrea Pflaumer

•

REDDY CASE

Editors, Daily Planet:

I too am very sad to hear about the verdicts in the Reddy family sex slavery case. In my opinion, the whole family should be deported and their ill-gotten fortune should be confiscated. To my amazement, people still eat in their restaurant! At the very least there should be a total boycott of the Pasand restaurant. It’s a very sad comment on our “justice” system when rich people like the Reddy family can get off with such light sentences for such horrible crimes, and were it not for the quick thinking of Marcia Poole, the family might have gotten away with murder, literally. The citizens of Berkeley owe her a debt of gratitude for her civic spirit and moral courage. All too often people just turn their head and pretend not to notice. Thanks to Marcia and to the Daily Planet for shining the light of truth.

Paul Griffin

•

UC HOTEL PROJECT

Editors, Daily Planet:

The Central Labor Council and Building Trades Council of Alameda County support the recommendations of the task force appointed to study the proposed downtown hotel/conference center project. This project has the potential to be a major benefit to the city and the local community.

Through a process that has been both open and thorough, the task force has had the opportunity to consider issues of concern to a broad cross-section of the community, whose support for the project will be essential as it moves forward.

In particular, the recommendations relating to labor and employment will help encourage the creation of good, living wage jobs consistent with the City of Berkeley’s commitment to social justice and equitable and sustainable development. They will also help to avoid lengthy labor disputes, such as the ongoing fight at the Claremont Resort and Spa.

The Central Labor Council and Building Trades Councils also support the maintenance of the task force as an active body as the project moves forward. When the developer submits a formal proposal, the broad expertise of the task force puts it in a good position to review and comment on that proposal, thus providing valuable feedback to the Planning Commission and City Council.

This project can be a win-win for Berkeley residents, workers and businesses. The City Council adopting the entire set of task force recommendations and forwarding them to the developer would be an important step in this direction.

Judy Goff

Secretary-Treasurer

Central Labor Council of Alameda County

Barry Luboviski

Secretary-Treasurer

Alameda County Building Trades Council

•

CORRECTION

Editors, Daily Planet:

I would like to correct an error in Matthew Artz’s article “School Board Moves Toward November Ballot Tax Measure” (Daily Planet, June 4-7). Mr. Artz erroneously states that BUSD has staffed school libraries with library media teachers, rather than “licensed” librarians.

Library media teachers are “licensed” librarians: credentialed classroom teachers who possess a second credential in library science. A school librarian is therefore a teacher qualified to teach students information literacy, promote student literacy, and deliver curriculum standards, in collaboration with the regular classroom teacher. I believe Mr. Artz intended to recognize that BUSD does not have credentialed librarians in most schools.

The confusion arises because our K-5 libraries, with the exception of a site-funded librarian at Malcolm X, are staffed by library media technicians (same initials— LMT’s), but these para-professionals are not credentialed librarians, i.e., teachers. Only the secondary schools have credentialed library media teachers, although the staffing allocations vary by site.

What do our schools need? A professional library staff that includes credentialed library media teachers and library media technicians. Why? To improve student achievement, and enrich and support the K-12 curriculum.

Kristin Collins

•

GATEWAY TO OUR CITY

Editors, Daily Planet:

You may drive along University or San Pablo avenues, and never see the wonderful neighborhoods just around the corner. Made up mostly of small cozy homes, amazing flower and vegetable gardens, fruit trees, little creeks that become raging water in winter. The low, down-to-earth scale here gives us sunshine like nowhere else in town.

This is Berkeley’s melting pot of ethnic and occupational diversity. Fixer-upper homes are still affordable here although the fixing may take a lifetime! In our neighborhoods young families are having a baby boom such that our elementary schools north of University Avenue do not have adequate capacity.

There are delightfully walkable neighborhoods here, but also some streets we avoid. The crime there generally seems to diminish only in election years. We wonder why the city tolerates that and why drug dealing and prostitution occurs in various locations on University and San Pablo avenues regularly.

Why is the city imposing out-of-scale development next to our modest homes? Why does the school board have plans that may destroy schools, community resources, and pave over playgrounds for parking lots? Why are University Avenue sidewalks filthy and rarely cleaned? Why does it feel that the city does not care about us?

In the Flatlands neighborhood of LeConte, where Mayor Tom Bates lives, things are done quite differently. LeConte Elementary School would never be sacrificed although the density of children in LeConte Neighborhood is one fourth that of the Franklin School neighborhood. When developers want to build on Telegraph or Shattuck avenues near LeConte, they go to the LeConte Neighborhood Association and work out all the details—design, parking, use, etc, and only after neighborhood approval does the project go to the city.

In our neighborhoods we get a “done deal” landing on us, and over time, the “magic box” of development often changes to become even worse than what was approved. There is something terribly wrong here.

We want our neighborhoods to be treated as responsibly and fairly as Mayor Tom Bates’ Neighborhood.

Merrilie Mitchell

Coalition for University-San Pablo

•

ANIMAL RIGHTS

Editors, Daily Planet:

The democratic process got mugged in Oakland last month. Despite overwhelming public support, on May 18 the Alameda County Board of Supervisors’ “Fair Liaison Committee” (supes Scott Haggerty and Keith Carson) abdicated their responsibility to their constituents and killed a proposed ordinance banning wild animal acts at the Alameda County Fair.

In the past the fair has featured elephant rides, demeaning tiger and bear acts, alligators and photo ops with a baby chimp. Bad for the animals, bad—and potentially dangerous—for the public. And inappropriate for a county agricultural fair. The endless travel, unnatural living conditions, and the stresses of performance-on-demand are harmful to the animals, as are the often brutal training methods.

The board received some 200 letters in support of the ordinance, and not one opposed. A dozen animal welfare organizations representing more than 100,000 members in Alameda County (the Oakland Zoo, the SPCA, the Humane Society of the U.S., et al.) submitted support letters, as did State Sen. Don Perata and Assemblymembers Wilma Chan and Loni Hancock. Even County Sheriff Charlie Plummer was on board.

Mr. Haggerty wasted a good deal of time extolling the alleged virtues of the fair’s 4-H program, his daughter’s dedication to her ailing pig, and his close ties (!) to fair boardmembers—all irrelevant to the matter at hand. He should have recused himself due to conflicts of interest. More than 30 ordinance supporters were not allowed to speak.

Those concerned should express their dismay to Board President Gail Steele, an avowed animal lover. This matter deserves a public hearing before the full Board of Supervisors. Further, the ordinance should cover all of unincorporated Alameda County, and all county-owned property, not just the fairgrounds. The animals and the public deserve better.

Eric Mills

Action for Animals, Oakland

•

STAGECRAFT

Editors, Daily Planet:

While many who would deify Ronald Reagan praise his being “tough” against communism and terrorism, I am thinking about the 241 Marines who were killed when their barracks were bombed in 1983. President Reagan’s tough response was to abandon Lebanon. It is only now that we know this was a seminal event in Osama bin Laden’s career; it was the moment he saw the United States as a paper tiger. The larger-than-life image of a president who secretly sold missiles to terrorists in exchange for hostages and who used the money to conduct a war prohibited by our United States Congress deserves adulation for just one thing: the stagecraft of a Hollywood icon.

Bruce Joffe

Piedmont

•

MORE CLARIFCATION, PLEASE

Editors, Daily Planet:

I’m still trying to get it straight. The chairman of the Rent Control Board is opposed to means testing tenants because it is “an Ashcroftesque invasion of privacy” (“Rent Board Chair Chides Control Foes’ ‘Rant,’” Daily Planet, May 25-27), despite the fact that means testing is used to determine eligibility for many social welfare programs such as student financial aid, subsidized medical care and public housing.

In response to my request for clarification (Letters, Daily Planet, June 1-3), one of his fellow commissioners, Chris Kavanagh, writes that anyone who supports means testing for tenants must also support a “parallel or reciprocal rental or property means testing process” without further describing such a process. He then states that such a process of “counterproductive and legally untenable” again without offering specifics (Letters, Daily Planet, June 4-7). Yet both tenants and landlords pay state and federal income taxes which rely on a process of means testing.

It seems to me that rent controls redistribute income from a landlord to a tenant, regardless of whether the landlord can afford it or the tenant needs it. Instead of regulating rents, why not impose a tax on landlords whose net incomes exceed a certain amount, and use those taxes to help pay the rents of tenants whose net incomes fall below a certain amount? This would produce a more equitable redistribution of income than current rent controls do. And as the tax would be based on net income, it would encourage landlords to invest in maintaining and improving their rental properties, increasing the city’s property tax base, thereby reducing projected budget deficits or property tax rates.

I am still hopeful for clarification, both from Commissioners Anderson and Kavanagh, regarding their comments opposing means testing.

The Wilde Irish Productions theater group is back at the Berkeley City Club with another sterling production—Irish, of course. This time it is Patricia Burke Brogan’s heartbreaking—maybe the word should be “horrifying”—internationally known drama, Eclipsed.

Although Brogan herself insists angrily “it’s not a documentary!”, her play seems to have been the first in the storm of media attention paid to the (unfortunately) true Magdalene Laundry scandals. Films, articles, TV specials: the whole works have been spurred by the story of these women who, until uncomfortably recently, lived out their lives as quasi-slaves, providing free labor to the money-making laundries attached to some Irish (and English and Scottish) convents.

Their crimes? They were—or sometimes were only suspected by their families of potentially being—too sexual. (Some were only seen as “too pretty”!) Enraged by, or fearful of, the stigma of illegitimate pregnancy, their families dumped them at the laundries where they were given new names.

Their babies were placed in orphanages. Those children who as adults have attempted to trace their family history are frequently stymied. (A computer search has so far been unable to find any reference at all to the babies’ fathers).

The last of the Irish Magdalene Laundries was closed in 1996.

Brogan’s drama, fiction as it is, has unusual authenticity; the playwright is a former novice who was assigned to a Magdalene Laundry.

One suspects that it is her personal acquaintance with the reality of life among these women that produces the most surprising part of the play—the playfulness which is often seen among the young women. This drama is not unrelenting misery.

Yes, it’s a very painful story; but these are young women—probably late teens, early twenties, still very much full of life. They’ve become friends and they act the way young people do. When nobody is there to catch them, they’re very apt to joke and tease and waste time.

It’s very real and very poignant. And a very effective part of the dramatic technique.

It isn’t surprising that the Wilde Irish company has created such a strong production—they’re given to placing the right actors in the right roles, and this is no different. The Magdalenes themselves are fine actors, and believable, establishing individualized personalities. And both the Mother Superior (Breda Courtney) and the novice (Lauren Bloom) are uncomfortably real.

To remark on only one or two of the production’s technical strengths: first, there is Richard Olmsted’s staging. He has done a truly remarkable job of transforming the City Club’s oblong room into a believable laundry. (It doesn’t seem do-able, but he did). And Greg Sharpin’s sound design is equally extraordinary. It’s pretty clear that the people who are running things in this production know what they’re doing.

The laundries first came to public attention in Dublin in 1993 when 133 graves of unnamed women were found on grounds sold to developers by an old convent named High Park. (Subsequently more than 20 more graves were located). The graves belonged to the women who had served out their lives as unpaid workers in the laundry attached to the convent.

Originally established in Ireland as a refuge and rehabilitation project for prostitutes, the laundries date back several centuries. Somewhere in the last half of the 19th century, they became dumping grounds for unwed mothers—even rape or incest victims—and for “wild” girls who were suspiciously flirtatious, or even, just too pretty. The “rehabilitation” to which they were subjected was labor in the laundries; they served as unpaid laborers doing the laundry generated by the church and, subsequently, other sources.

It is considered to have been a good source of revenue for the church.›

Weekly public concerts from a rustic outdoor bandstand and al fresco family picnics on a park lawn on a sunny afternoon might seem most traditionally the stuff of Middle America rather than the Bay Area. But at San Francisco’s Stern Grove they are the essence of a local tradition you can enjoy every summer.

Set in the southwestern part of San Francisco, Stern Grove is a venerable outdoor concert space that, for nearly seven decades, has hosted free public concerts on summer Sunday afternoons. This year’s Stern Grove Festival season starts out with jazz on June 13 and fades away with a Blues concert on Aug. 15.

The festival is high quality egalitarian entertainment. Thousands of people crowd park benches or spread out on the lawn to listen to an afternoon of music.

The grove is a natural amphitheater on the floor of a ravine that trends gently west towards the Pacific Ocean. Hillsides covered with eucalyptus, redwoods, and bright nasturiums rise steeply upwards from an open concert meadow and form a stunning backdrop to the simple stage, as well as effectively screening out the surrounding city.

In recent years the annual programs have come to reflect the Bay Area’s increasingly eclectic cultures and tastes in music. The San Francisco Ballet and San Francisco Symphony remain traditional fixtures, but this year’s schedule (see sidebar) also features an Indonesian gamelan, West African music, Gershwin, and something called “Sounds Electronic.”

Admission is free. There are no tickets and seating is based on when you arrive, not wealth nor connections, except for one row of picnic tables reserved for volunteers, the Stern Grove Festival leadership, sponsors, press and performers’ families. Anyone who arrives early enough can claim a good spot on the park benches or lawn fronting the stage. Many concertgoers make a day of it, trekking down into the grove in the mid or late morning and enjoying a leisurely picnic, conversation, a novel, or the Sunday paper in the hours before the performance starts at 2 p.m.

Many concert-goers come back again and again. Stern Grove concerts have been a three-generation tradition in my family. My mother performed there in the 1940s, when Mrs. Stern, the founder and benefactor of the festival, still occupied her traditional table under a spreading tree.

Some of my favorite Stern Grove memories are of lively Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, the Merola Opera (the San Francisco’s Opera’s annual training program for young singers), and the Bicentennial Fourth of July, when a vigorous “1776” was staged for a happy, festive, crowd.

Owned since the mid-19th century by a Mr. Greene who had planted the surrounding eucalyptus, the grove was “discovered” as an outdoor performance space by wealthy San Franciscan Mrs. Sigmund (Rosalie M.) Stern in the 1930s.

She purchased the property and gave it to San Francisco as a park and performance space. She later gave the University of California funds for its first women’s residence hall, Stern Hall, but that’s a different story.

The first concert, by the San Francisco Symphony, was held in 1932. In 1938, Mrs. Stern, then president of the San Francisco Recreation Commission, set up the non-profit Stern Grove Festival Association to sponsor a regular summer program of music, dance, and drama.

She laid down the foresighted and immutable requirement that the entertainment at the grove be free of charge. Her descendants still head the festival Association.

Stern Grove is at the northwest corner of the intersection of Sloat Boulevard, which runs west to the San Francisco Zoo, and 19th Avenue, which speeds south from Golden Gate Park. You can reach the grove by bus or by car. Consult the Stern Grove Festival website (www.sterngrove.org) for public transit details, and lots of other particulars about attending the concerts.

The most direct and scenic driving route from the East Bay is probably via the Bay Bridge to Market Street, all the way up Market around the shoulder of Twin Peaks to Portola, then down the hill to the intersection of Portola and Junipero Serra Boulevard. Veer right onto Sloat and the grove is not far ahead.

Onsite parking is very limited. A steep driveway off Vale Street descends to a small amount of first-come-first-served parking near the Concert Meadow. You’ll probably have to make do in the surrounding neighborhoods north or south of the grove. Check street signage for any special Sunday parking regulations.

A main entrance road (pedestrians and shuttles only) curves down into the grove from the intersection of Sloat and 19th Avenue, and steep, switchback, trails enter the park from several other points.

Within the Meadow, besides lawn and bench seating, one row of picnic tables is available for first-come-first-served reservations by calling (415) 831-5500 at 9 a.m. on the Monday before the Sunday performance you plan to attend.

You can come and go from your seats before the performance, as long as you leave at least one member of your party in place, get your hand stamped (since access is cut off to unstamped latecomers when the Meadow fills up), and get back by 1:30 p.m.

Near the Meadow there’s the 1892 Trocadero clubhouse, originally a secluded stop for the “carriage trade,” now a venue for pre-concert talks. Food booths are set up for the concerts, and there are trails and parkland to explore.

Prepare for your concert picnic with a blanket, quilt, or tablecloth to mark your picnic spot on the lawn or pad a hard wooden bench. Remember a hat or sunglasses; the spectator seating faces south.

Travel light. It can be a long walk down into the grove. There are special access arrangements and seating for mobility impaired spectators. See the website for details.

Dress in layers. It can be balmy in the East Bay and foggy at Stern Grove. It can also start out chilly, breezy, and overcast in the morning, and turn sunny and warm by performance time, or vice versa, if the fog is coming in.

Although the performance is free, volunteers circulate asking for Festival donations. Be as generous as you can, since staging a summer’s worth of concerts requires at least a million dollars.

Don’t smoke in the Concert Meadow or bring pets. Tall items, like sun umbrellas and folding chairs that can obstruct views, can be used but must be taken down before the concert. You can’t record or photograph the performances without authorization.

After 9/11, two signs appeared in the windows of many East Bay homes. One said “Hate-Free Community,” the other, “Justice not Vengeance.” A third, urging “No War in Iraq,” was widely displayed after March 2003. All three came from Inkworks Press in West Berkeley. Inkworks is a print shop with a mission summed up by two words on the cover of its brochure: “Progressive Printing.” By “progressive,” Inkworks means not only what gets produced, but how the work gets done. The press is a collective—a union shop owned and operated by the people who work there.

This year Inkworks celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. As the date suggests, the collective was born in the ferment of the late ‘60s and ‘70s. “We were a group of activists,” says Erica Braun, Inkworks’ general manager and one of the founders. “There was a print shop before this, associated with an adult high school, where some of us learned how to print... We decided to set up a job shop that would be a resource to community groups... We seriously gathered the skills to make sure the project had a good foundation.”

The challenges weren’t just technical. At that time, Braun notes, “there were very few women in the trade—really none. I had the wonderful experience of calling up other printers and asking how to fix our old press. From the older guys who really valued hard work, you’d get respect.” The younger men, she recalls, “were terrible.”

Inkworks’ founders apparently learned what they needed to know. Today 21 people work at the facility on Seventh Street just north of Ashby, which the collective purchased in 1987. With two 12- by 18-inch presses and two 29-inch presses—one single-color and the other two—Inkworks can and does handle a great range of high-quality, offset printing assignments.

Such breadth, says Bernard Marszalek, Inkworks’ sales and marketing manager, was once common for commercial presses but is getting rare. Nowadays, most print shops focus on labels or booklets or newspapers or some other format, and for good reason: Specialization makes for greater efficiency and hence larger profit margins. “If you’re doing one thing,” Marszalek notes, “you get that stuff down and have people trained for that thing.”

At Inkworks, by contrast, “we still do a range of work—way beyond what most shops our size would probably do.” That’s because Inkworks is committed to meeting the needs of the progressive and non-profit communities. That commitment is reflected in the remarkable diversity of the shop’s products: posters, bumper stickers, window signs, leaflets, brochures, logos, books, newsletters, magazines and some hard-to-classify creations, such a deck of “war profiteer” playing cards, done in collaboration with Corp Watch, that parodies the deck that the U.S. military distributed in Iraq.

Over 90 percent of Inkworks’ jobs are for nonprofits. “We don’t turn away projects,” says Marszalek. “If we can do them in-house, we do them here. Otherwise we find vendors who can produce the work. We bargain for the jobs ourselves, but we service the community in a way that many shops probably would hesitate to do because they wouldn’t seem profitable.”

A client that’s not well-funded or that has no money at all is treated differently than one that has substantial financial backing. Besides discounting for community groups, Inkworks does a few projects each year as close to cost as possible. When the product is the first issue of a newsletter or magazine, says Braun, “We’ll donate the labor; you pay for the materials. You can get most print shops to donate the printing but not to underwrite the first issue.”

Certified by Alameda County as a Green Business, Inkworks is listed in Co-Op America’s 2004 National Green Pages. The shop uses vegetable-based inks, and papers that are recycled and free of dioxin and chlorine. “Our practice,” says Marszalek, “is to minimize waste of all kinds; very little goes out of this shop.” This summer, Inkworks is taking a big technological leap in the direction of environmental sustainability. The shop has purchased a new, four-color digital press that uses no metal plates and that will bypass several stages of film and chemistry, greatly decreasing Inkworks’ contribution to the waste stream.

Like all major decisions at Inkworks, getting the new press had to be vetted through the shop’s democratic decision-making process, which is to say it had to be approved by the entire collective. On routine matters, a majority vote suffices. “It’s the bigger decisions,” says pre-press specialist Nobuo Nishi, “like getting this new press, which is a huge expenditure and will affect the direction of the shop,” that require unanimity.

Fifteen of the 21 people working at Inkworks are full members of the collective. New workers go through a six-month probation period, after which they become peers with everyone else. Everyone draws the same hourly wage. Inkworks is a union shop, so wages and benefits are union-scale. Year-end financial surpluses are equally distributed through a profit-sharing account. Members receive their dividends when they retire or leave the printing industry.

About half the owner-operators at Inkworks have been working there for over 10 years. Finding new people is becoming more and more of a challenge, due in part to the increasing technological sophistication of the printing industry.

Nishi joined in 1981. “When I came in,” he recalls, “I didn’t have any experience in pre-press. Somebody else came into bindery without any skills at the same time, and we were able to contribute fairly quickly to the shop. I think right now we would be very wary of bringing in people without any experience.”

“The other side,” says Marszalek, “is that computers are just second nature to everybody, so a lot of people have some level of skill. But still, the software that you need to know now is more demanding than simply hands-on.”

Add to this the recent closing of the last local resource for training on large presses, the Graphic Arts Union’s training center at the Printers Institute of Northern California. That closure reflects the outsourcing of printing and the consequent loss of local jobs in the industry.

The upshot of all these changes is that those who are most likely to be taken into the shop are older people who already have the experience in the field. “It’s a big issue with us,” says Nishi, 54. When I started, I was just over 30, and was probably the median age of the group at the time. Now, I’m still the median age!”

Training and technology aside, participating in the Inkworks collective demands a set of faculties and inclinations that can be hard to find. “Not everybody is cut out to be both into the craft of printing and the responsibility of managing and being a participant,” observes Braun. “Sometimes you can do two of these things and not the third.”

“It’s also a privilege to do it,” she goes on to note. “People struggle everyday to keep body and soul together, to live out their ideals. There’s a message there. That people can do that.”

And that they can do that right here in Berkeley, one would like to add. Inkworks’ longevity is a testimony to both the vision and commitment of its participants, and the progressive character of the local community that supports its work. To be sure, these days the shop gets work from distant clients. So many thousands of people printed out the post-9/11 window signs from its website that Inkworks’ Internet service provider warned that the shop would need to upgrade its capacity.

But Berkeley is home. “We want to be here,” says Marszalek, “because people know where we are. We’re close to the freeway exit, which is important in terms of moving paper around. We want to be here also because we’re close to another green printer, Consolidated, down the street, that does a kind of work we can’t do, on a web press... We complement each other. Being allied with the vendors in the area is good... Also, we’re a union shop, and we like to promote union jobs, and we think it’s important that Berkeley have a diversity of resources in terms of its tax base and its community... But mainly we want to be in Berkeley because we feel part of this community, in terms of Berkeley being in the forefront of promoting green businesses.”

This last sentiment meshes nicely with Mayor Bates’ green business initiative and the forthcoming establishment of a Sustainability Office under the Berkeley city manager.

But its greenness is only of the many ways in which Inkworks embodies Berkeley at its best: a community that is both humane and forward-looking, committed to justice and to quality endeavor, intensely democratic and imaginatively enterprising.

“The Corporation” Featuring interviews with Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn and many others, opens at Act I and II Theater on Center St. and runs though June 17. 464-5980.www.thecorporation.tv/usa/index.php

READINGS AND LECTURES

Carol Field introduces her new cookbook “Italy in Small Bites” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com

U of North Texas Colegium Baroque Ensemble, present “Pillars of the Italian Baroque,” a program of vocal and instrumental music from 17th-century Venice and Rome, at 12:30 p.m. at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way Tickets are $5-$10. www.music.unt.edu/the/Collegium%20Musicum.htm

Rotem Gilbert and Adam Gilbert, recorder and Mahan Esfahani, harpsichord and organ, “A Due Canti” chamber music from 17th-c. Italy and 18th-c. France at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph of Arimathea Chapel, Bowditch at Durant. Tickets are $5-$15. 650-625-0635. rxg35@po.cwru.edu

Anita Wells, author of “Notes and Documents of Free Persons of Color” at 3 p.m. at the African American Museum and Library of Oakland, 659 14th St.

MUSIC AND DANCE

Farallon Recorder Quartet performs music from the Renaissance, baroque and today at 1 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way . Tickets are $15-$18, children $5. 559-4670. tish-feb@mindspring.com

Vincent Spaulding in a benefit for McGee Farm Preschool at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com

THEATER

Acme Players Ensemble “Martha Stewart in Hell” at 7 p.m. at APE Space, 2525 8th St. at Dwight. Free but donations welcome. Continues every second Sunday.

FILM

“Focus” A middle-aged businessman’s new glasses make him see and be the target of anti-Semitism, at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. Suggested donation $2. 848-0237. www.brjcc.org

READINGS AND LECTURES

James Lee Burke reads from his new novel “In the Moon of Red Ponies” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com

“Tales From the Bed: on Living, Dying and Having it All,” Jenifer Estess’ book will be discussed by representatives from Project ALS, combatting Lou Gehirg’s disease, including actor Willie Garson of HBO’s “Sex and the City” at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com

St. Ann’s Consort performs Sestina and other works by Monteverdi, Marenzio, and A. Gabrieli, at 4:30 p.m. at St. Joseph of Arimathea Chapel, Bowditch at Durant. Tickets are $12. 965-0587.

Galileo Project performs “It's a Mad, Mad World,” an exploration of the darker side of 17th-century England, at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph of Arimathea Chapel, Bowditch at Durant. Tickets are $10-$15. 787-9956.

Alameda High School Band at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

TUESDAY, JUNE 15

FILM

“The Corporation” Featuring interviews with Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn and many others, opens at Act I and II Theater on Center St. and runs though June 17. 464-5980.www.thecorporation.tv/usa/index.php

David Brooks takes a satirical look at middle class America in “On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com

MUSIC AND DANCE

Lee Gaines, jazz pianist, a regular performer at the Cheese Board, in honor of Lesbian and Gay Pride month. Everyone welcome. At 1:15 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. corner of MLK.

“Forbidden Christmas ot The Doctor and The Patient” by Rezo Gabriadze, featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Also Thurs. and Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sun at 3 p.m. Tickets are $65 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu

Dezarie at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13 in advance, $15 at the door. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com

Pack the car. It’s time for another getaway, along country roads, through quiet towns, heading toward the spectacular Sonoma Coast. Allow time to sample, to browse, to walk, and at the end of the day, to relax and picnic on the beach.

Your final destination is Doran Beach Regional Park, south of Bodega Bay, with stops in Freestone, at Wild Flour Bakery, and the other Bodega, the one without the bay.

Heading west on Bodega Highway, your pace begins to slow as you savor the surrounding landscape. Views of rolling hills, outcroppings of rock, cows in verdant pastures, fruit laden orchards, country homes and rustic farm buildings are not to be rushed.

A stop at Wild Flour Bakery serves two delicious purposes, a morning snack and breads for an afternoon picnic. From Friday through Monday, owner Jed Wallach and his staff bake 800 loaves of bread daily in a wood-fired brick oven designed by Alan Scott. The other three days of the week are spent building up the temperature necessary for the seven types of sourdough bread and two pastries that are rotated daily—a true labor of love evident in the finished product.

Inside the renovated barn you are treated to wonderful aromas, bread samples, and a bright airy space fronted by a large window and extending back into the workplace. You can enjoy your espresso and scone or one of the world’s biggest sticky buns at a farm style table while watching a steady stream of customers being served by Jed and his staff. A true craftsman who highly values personal contact with his patrons, Jed doesn’t advertise. With a product this good, he doesn’t need to.

Fortified for browsing, your next stop is the quiet town of Bodega, small in size but not in spirit. Like a step back in time, the schoolhouse on the left as you enter town, harks back to Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds. At the Country Store you can purchase cool Birds t-shirts along with assorted seashells, other seaside memorabilia and typical general store merchandise. Only five miles from the coast, the theme continues at Northern Light Surf Shop where well-crafted surfboards and a large selection of brightly patterned Hawaiian shirts are enticingly displayed outside. Craftsmanship is artistically displayed at the Artisans’ Coop Gallery where locals display their work in various mediums: jewelry, pottery, hand knits items, hand dyed silk. Further browsing can take you past the antiques at Hamilton Trading Co., or to the Cup O’ Mud for coffee and ice cream, but it won’t take you far. This “don’t blink” spot is small but buzzes with community camaraderie and is well worth a stop.

Once you reach the popular coastal village of Bodega Bay, you should be ready to enjoy its natural bounty. Drive to Bodega Head, at the northern end of town, the site of an aborted attempt to build a nuclear power plant. In this case the power definitely resided in the citizens of Bodega Bay. Bodega Head is a rugged promontory with spectacular views of Bodega Harbor, out to sea, and down the coast to Point Reyes, sheer cliffs, and trails for hiking and walking. With bracing winds at your back, yellow lupine at your feet, pelicans and oystercatchers soaring above, sandy beach coves below, and, during fall and spring migrations, the spouts of California Gray Whales, this is the ideal natural site to work off the morning’s treat and clear the cobwebs of a busy week. There are two main trails circling the promontory that start from the cliff parking lot and numerous smaller trails, former deer trails, which crisscross the headland.

Bird watchers might enjoy a gentler walk before settling in for the day’s relaxation and picnic. At the Bird Walk Coastal Area, just south of Bodega Bay, a main trail surrounds a restored saltwater marsh. Benches and viewing platforms, an information kiosk highlighting the myriad number of birds calling this marsh home, and marshland vibrant with colorful grasses, reeds and wildflowers provide a gentle environmental contrast to the rugged beauty of Bodega Head.

Enough driving, walking and viewing. A relaxation period is critical to a successful getaway and Doran Beach Regional Park is the spot. At Cypress Day Use Area you’ll find sturdy picnic tables with grills beneath the trees or on the beach, a two-mile expanse of white sand in a protected cove, and sparkling surf. On a recent visit various beach activities were being enjoyed: kite flying, volleyball, fishing, dog walking, sand excavations, water play, beach reading and various forms of passive observation of the views. Something for everyone.

A spacious mellow place to end a day spent discovering the riches along the Bodega Highway to the coast: its people, crafts, and natural beauty.

Rachel Corrie’s Parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, will speak at 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Benefit for Middle East Children’s Alliance and International Solidarity Movement. Tickets are $20. 548-0542, 234-42 50. www.mecaforpeace.org

“Teens and Depression” a presentation by Berkeley High School Health Center at 9 a.m. at the 6th flr conference room, 2180 Milvia St. for information call Kim at 644-6258.

Car Wash to Benefit the Homeless from 9:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. at St. Augustine Church, 400 Alcatraz Avenue in Oakland, between Telegraph and College Aves. All proceeds go to help the homeless families with children and the single women and men who call Harrison House their home temporarily.

Berkeley Critical Mass Bike Ride meets at the Berkeley BART the second Friday of every month at 5:30 p.m.

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Players at all levels are welcome. 652-5324.

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. www.bpf.org

Overeaters Anonymous meets at 1:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Church at Solano and The Alameda. Parking is free and is handicapped accessible. 525-5231.

Berkeley Fire Station Open House from 1 to 4 p.m. at Station 5, 2680 Shattuck Ave. Tour the station, see a safety presentation, and historical display and enjoy hot dogs and cake. Families and children especially welcome. 981-5506.

Help Shape the Future of San Pablo Avenue Residents are invited to a Public Workshop to re-energize the San Pablo corridor, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Oakland Public Library Auditorium, 125 Fourteenth Street in Oakland. Sponsored by Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) District 4, the Association of Bay Area Governments, East Bay Community Foundation, Greenbelt Alliance, and A.C. Transit.

Greens at Work will assist Aquatic Park EGRET in an old-fashioned radish pull from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. This in support of the habitat restoration efforts of Aquati c Park EGRET. Meet at the Cabin on Middle Pond at the south end of Aquatic Park, one mile south of the bike/ped bridge. The park’s south end can also be reached by heading south from Ashby, west on 67th, and then north on Shellmound to its terminus at the circle where parking is available. AC Transit 19 will take you to 67th and Hollis. Bring a hat, sunblock, something to drink, and a trowel or weeder if you have one.

Caterpillar Count at the Kid’s Garden Club for ages 7 to 12. Who is eating our leaves? Look for the larva and match their favorite plants to discover their flying forms. From 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. Fee is $3-$4. Registration required. 525-2233.

Project Wet Educator’s Academy from the State Water Education Foundation and Water Department. It serves as an introduction to the investigation of water and its uses – from aquatic ecosystems, water conservation, groundwater, and water pollution prevention, to wastewater treatment and the Activity and Curriculum Guide that includes them all. From 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. Cost is $45-$51. Registration required. 636-1684.

Keeping Chickens in the City David Morris, chicken keeper for over 20 years, will cover the basics of ra ising chickens, egg production, and using chickens as a central component of your recycling and composting operation. He will also cover the fundamentals of the laws regarding keeping chickens in the city. Class will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Davi d's chicken coop in Berkeley. Call to pre-register and for location. Cost is $10-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 548-2220, ext. 233. beck@ecologycenter.org

Free Lead-Safe Painting and Remodeling Class Learn how to detect and remedy lead hazards and conduct lead-safe renovations for your older home. From 9 to 11 a.m. at the ACLPPP Training Center, 1017 22nd Ave., Suite #110, Oakland. To make reservations call the Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program at 567-8280.

ProArts Open Studio s with over 160 participating artists in Berkeley and around the East Bay. For a list see www.mesart.com/openstudiosPA.jsp

Alt ernative Materials: Cob and Strawbale Two natural building methods are currently undergoing renewed popularity and gaining building code approval in many communities. Class runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $75. 525-7610.

Let Us Eat Cake Marriage Celebration Inviting all couples - gay or straight - who wish to celebrate the institution of marriage to join us at 1 p.m. at Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. We will confirm our Christian commit ment to include all who wish to form loving partnerships. Families invited. Cakes for all couples to cut. Rice can be thrown. Register at 524-2921.

Save the Day Gala A fund-raiser for the American Red Cross Bay Area with cocktails, dinner, dancing with music by Know Jazz, and auction at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland, from 6 to 11 p.m. Tickets are $125. 595-4460.

Vocal Jazz Workshop with Richard Kalman, 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. followed by jam session, at the Albany Community Center. 1249 Marin Ave. 524-9283.

Rent Board 2004 Election Progressive Slate Nominating Convention Help select the candidates for the pro-Rent Control slate. At 3 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Sponsored by the Committee to Defend Affordable Housing, the Gray Panthers and other community groups. 333-0539.

Scratch and Itch: Poison Oak Learn how to identify the plant throughout the seasons, avoid it and treat the rash when it appears. For all ages from 11 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Center. Registration required. 525-2233.

Garden Friends at Tilden Nature Center from 2 to 3 pm. for all ages. Summer is beginning and the garden is full of life. We’ll tend to the plants, munch on some snacks, and look for signs of life in the butterfly and Kids Gardens. 525-2233.

Solar Elect ricity For Your Home Now you can produce your own electricity and “sell” the excess back to PG&E, running your meter backwards! Learn how to size, specify and design your own solar electrical generator. A short field trip to a functioning house/system in Berkeley and current catalog of available equipment are also included. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $75. 525-7610.

Golden State Model Railroad Museum open from noon to 5 p.m. Also open on Saturdays and Fri day evenings from 7 to 10 p.m. Located in the Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline Park at 900-A Dornan Drive in Pt. Richmond. Admission is $2-$3. 234-4884 or www.gsmrm.org

Women’s Cancer Resource Center, volunteer training, every second Monday of the month, from 6 to 8 p.m. at 5741 Telegraph Ave. To sign up call Emily at 601-4040, ext. 109. emily@wcrc.org

Fitness for 55+ A total body workout including aerobics, stretching and strengthening at 1:15 p.m. every Monday at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5170.

Baby Yoga at 11 a.m. and Yoga and Meditation for Children at 2:45 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 5 48-0425.

TUESDAY, JUNE 15

Organic Produce at low prices sold at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon Streets every Tuesday from 3 to 7 p.m. This is a project of BOSS Urban Gardening Institute and Spiral Gardens. 843-1307.

“Oakland to Argentina on Vegetable Oil” David, Mali, and their son Emilio tell amazing stories of their veggie oil trip adventure from Oakland to Argentina in their 1980 VW Dasher this past winter, at 7 p.m. at Biofuels Oasis, 2465 - 4th St. 665-5509.

American Red Cross Blood Services is holding a volunteer orientation from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at it s office, 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Volunteers are needed to support the more than 40 blood drives held each month. Advance sign-up needed 594-5165.

Death Penalty Vigil, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the North Berkeley BART station. Sponsored by Berkeley F riends Meeting. 528-7784.

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org

Tuesday Tilden Walkers We are a few slowpoke seniors who walk between a mile or two each Tuesday, meeting at 9:30 a.m. in the Little Farm parking lot. To join us, call 215-7672.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday, rain or shine, at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes, sunscreen and a hat. 548-9840.

Downtown Oakland Walking Tours every Wednesday and Saturday at 10 a.m to 11:30 a.m. Discover the changing skyline, landmarks and churches. For details on the different itineraries call 238-3224. www.oaklandnet.com/wallkingtours

Berkeley Gray Panthers with KPFA’s Jennifer Stone of “Cover to Cover” at 7 p.m. at 1403 Addison St. 548-9696.

Interesting Backy ards Do you have a really cool backyard project or unusual sustainable living practice that you’d like to share with others in the East Bay? Consider becoming a stop on the 5th annual Urban Sustainability Bike Tour on Saturday, July 31. Past sites have included features such as graywater systems, chicken coops, bee hives, solar installations and permaculture gardens. For information call Beck at 548-2220, ext. 233.

Summer Reading Games at the Albany Public Library, from June 14th through August 14th. For information call 526-3700.

Opinion

Editorials

Last November, the Daily Planet got a phoned-in tip that six members of the Richmond City Council had taken part in a meeting, “over wine and cheese,” with people the caller identified as “Las Vegas types,” with the subject matter being the possibility of turning Point Molate over to casino gambling interests with Native American connections. The tipster, who identified himself as a rank-and-file environmentalist, said he’d heard a guy talking about the meeting in a bar, and that he loved Point Molate’s natural and historical splendors and was outraged at the idea of putting a casino there.

We assigned a reporter to the story, who made inquiries in the Richmond area. Nothing. She asked politically savvy people, who said that six councilmembers at an off-site meeting would be a violation of the Brown Act, so it couldn’t have happened. She talked to business people, who said that Chevron, the nearest neighbor, wouldn’t allow it, because it would threaten the security of their refinery. She asked environmental activists, who said that the property was too important for anyone to get away with a major development there. So we dropped it. For the record, we’ve never confirmed that the particular meeting our caller described took place, with or without a Brown Act violation.

However. In May, Richard Brenneman, who has many years of experience as an investigative reporter, started work on a story about an 18-story apartment complex planned for the old Stauffer plant site in Richmond. In the course of working on it, he picked up some of the same casino rumors that we’d heard in November, and he followed up on them. They included names this time, in particular the name of Jim Levine, of the Levine-Fricke firm. As we say in the trade, BINGO. Levine, reluctantly, confirmed that the casino plan was in the works, and asked the Planet to hold the story in return for an exclusive in July. Dick relayed the request to me, knowing full well what I’d say. No. Of course not. The public’s right to know, and all that good stuff.

Instead, we rushed the story into print, confident that it was only a matter of time before other media beat us to it. In our haste, we made a couple of editing errors, for which we apologize to Dick, who got the story right. Editors, not reporters, write captions at deadline time. The front page photo was not shot from the casino site as the caption said, but from a ridge overlooking the bay. Also, the size of the historic winery was understated by a factor of 10 because of a typographical error.

(I do wonder if some of our big-time competitors might have fallen for the Levine deal, since rumors have been flying for months without a word in print. Channel 2 News picked up the story on Friday night, after our weekend issue came out, though of course without credit to the Planet.)

Today’s paper contains letters from outraged insiders who were hoping to get their story straight before the public heard it. Don Gosney, an official of one of the big construction unions, Plumbers and Steamfitters Union Local 342, kindly points out errors major and trivial in our information about the casino proposal, hoping to discredit the story (see Page Fourteen). Clearly, he must be in a position to know a lot about the actual plans. Another letter writer is annoyed that information seems to have leaked from a private meeting staged for the benefit of local environmental honchos.

Here’s the thing: It’s the public’s right to know. What’s been happening, clearly, is the old Community Leader dodge. The developer comes into town, picks out key people, and makes them feel special, so that when the plan finally gets into the public realm the deals have already gone down. Construction unions of course benefit from massive construction projects, and they are within their rights advocating for them—in public. Some environmental benefits have come from tradeoffs with developers, but big mistakes have been made by self-styled environmental leaders who aren’t experienced at negotiating with sophisticated developers.

Coincidentally, today’s paper also contains a letter (at right) from an eagle-eyed reader who noticed that someone has been throwing copies of the paper in a trash can again, this time at the corner of Derby and College. She thought, mistakenly, that our carriers were responsible, when in fact they dutifully remove old copies from the distribution boxes and bring them back to our office to be recycled. Another reader actually saw a respectable looking grey-haired man with a beard taking fresh papers from our box and putting them in a trash can on South Shattuck—presumably a form of censorship of the content. This seems to happen regularly, with the location of the trashing related to what stories are in the issue.

Readers sometimes suggest that we shouldn’t cover sensitive issues at all. A letter in today’s paper, for example, submitted at the start of our 30-day cooling off period for letters regarding the Israel-Palestine struggle (mistakenly describing it as “a moratorium on all references to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in the paper”) suggests that we should self-censure all news of the controversy for at least six months (see Page Fourteen.

If there’s any reason for this paper’s existence, it’s to support the proposition that democracy just works better if everyone knows what’s happening. What’s been going on in Richmond is what’s sometimes described sarcastically as “mushroom planning: where everything is done in the dark, packaged in the dark and then sold as a final product.” We at the Planet think that public policy is best made in the sunshine, with many eyes on the decision-making process.

As part of our ongoing series of Planet editorials which annoy proponents of major and minor religions, we’d like to share with our readers a press release which we received this week from the United Methodist Communications Office of Public Information in Nashville. Here’s the headline: “Crawford Pastor Leaving Bush Back Yard for Iraq; United Methodist Clergyman To Serve as Military Chaplain.”

The Rev. Kent Berry of Crawford United Methodist Church, just a few miles from the “western White House,” who is in the Army National Guard, is being called to active duty. The press release quotes his analysis of the situation in Iraq: “Keep praying,” he advises, “and hang in there. Stay with it. Our goal is to stabilize the government, help the people, and then get out,” he says. “We’re doing the right thing.”

The gushy press release goes on to tell us that “church members are praying for the president who put Crawford on the map, as well as for their pastor. They and Berry’s family say their support for Operation Iraqi Freedom brings them closer together. ‘I’m very proud of my Dad,’ says daughter Britney, ‘because he’ll be over there fighting for our country and for Iraq.’”

The United Methodists in Nashville are so proud of Berry they’ve made a video about him, which you can see, if you’re interested, on their corporate website, umtv.org. Yes, that word is corporate. Pro-government propaganda seems to be big business for United Methodist Communications, as you can see for yourself at umtv.org. The site links to the Crawford, Texas, official website, which in turn links to Western White House Gifts, which boasts that “We are PROUD to be the Official Merchandiser for the McLennan County Republican Party...the Home County Party of President George W. Bush!” The site hawks Bush memorabilia of all kinds, including the Official “From Crawford to Baghdad” Commemorative Mugs. Cozy, isn’t it?

Here in Berkeley, Methodists are best known for standing up to their national organization on a variety of gay rights issues, but in Crawford and Nashville it’s obvious that you aren’t in Berkeley any more, Dorothy. The press releases out of Nashville provide yet another example of why some of the founding fathers didn’t think we should cut any slack for anyone just because they wrap themselves in the mantle of religion.

The UMTV website says that “at UMCom, our mission is to help the church tell its story.” Pardon us for not getting it, but why are Bush and company’s politically stupid and obviously immoral activities in Iraq part of the church’s story?

The Methodists are not the only mainstream religious group which has tried to climb on the political bandwagon lately, either. Some (not all) U.S. Catholic bishops are out in full cry against John Kerry and any other Catholic candidates who deviate from selected mainstream church positions. Of course, these same bishops don’t propose sanctions against candidates who don’t agree with the Pope’s stalwart opposition to both the war on Iraq and capital punishment.

There’s nothing wrong with churches expressing opinions on moral topics which intersect with the political sphere. In fact, some would see it as their duty, consistent with their articulated principles. In the olden days, children, at the beginning of the Vietnam war, it was the Methodists and the Catholics, in Ann Arbor where we lived, who first started expressing doubts about the morality of the U.S. government’s position, long before local politicos got on board.

The maxim, often articulated by Quakers, that religious people should “speak truth to power,” is compelling. But when religious leaders appear to be sycophantically aligning themselves with power, they look less noble. The United Methodists are certainly entitled to their own opinion about the legitimacy and efficacy of Bush’s war on Iraq, but an outside observer might wonder exactly how what looks like pro-Bush political propaganda activity squares with the tax exemptions of which they undoubtedly take full advantage. The website solicits contributions for the sponsoring Foundation for United Methodist Communications, identified as a tax-exempt corporation organized under U. S. Internal Revenue chapter 501(c)(3). Perhaps someone ought to ask the IRS a few questions about this exemption.